I knew who.

I was out of bed and headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth when my cell rang in my hand.

Mom.

I took the call. “Hey.”

“This isn’t your issue, Kathryn, and it isn’t mine. Brenda will do what she’s gotta do, though I can inform you, she’s far from happy about how Angelica’s been behaving. If she’ll cave, we’ll see. She’s done it in the past. But we’re a united front, do you understand me?”

“Seems like you had the same wakeup call as I did,” I remarked, walking into my tiny bathroom.

“We should have come up with a strategy,” she stated. “Though I wouldn’t have thought Portia would act out.”

And yet another sharp breath went up my nose.

Mom heard it.

“Careful of that, sugarsnap, you’ll get lightheaded,” Mom cautioned quietly.

She’d know.

It was a thing of mine. That sharp breath that usually preceded me holding my breath in order to control something when life got out of control.

I’d passed out once during a rare visitation with my father and he’d been on a tear, ranting about how Mom had filed some papers which might mean he’d have his paycheck garnished and he’d not be able to pay his mortgage.

If memory served, at the time, he owned a thirty-five-hundred-square-foot house in Littleton that had a pool table, a Jacuzzi, a wet bar, and in the garage were a pimped-out Ford Bronco and a Corvette Stingray. So even then, when I was fourteen and listening to his horseshit, I knew he wasn’t hurting.

But my mother was.

Brian was.

And I was.

Financially.

And otherwise.

“Right, Mom,” I muttered, staring at my electric toothbrush, wondering if I could get toothpaste on it while on the phone with my mother, preferring to think about that, and not the other things filling my short and already not-so-great day.

“I’m going to find a time that’s somewhat calm and go and talk to your brother,” Mom decreed.

Fabulous.

“Mom—” I started to tell her I wasn’t certain that was such a hot idea.

“Not with you, Kathryn. He’s shifted accountability for what’s become of his life to you. It’s not right. It’s not fair. And it hurts me to say it, but because of that, I think you’d be a hindrance if you were there.”

And again…

The need to cry.

I didn’t pull in breath through my nose because fortunately, Boone showed at the door.

He leaned a bare shoulder against the jamb and studied me with gentle eyes.

He hadn’t put on his jeans, which meant a lot of him was in view.

And all of it was spectacular.

But such was my morning, even that didn’t help.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said to my mother, but my gaze was on Boone’s face.

“We need to think strategically from here on,” Mom told me. “So I’ll let you know when it’s happening, what I intend to say, and I’d like you to be available at that time so when it’s done, I can go to you and fill you in.”

And be there for you because it’s going to go direct to shit and you’re going to need to lay that on somebody.

“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed.

“I’m not going to drag my feet, honey.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“All right,” she said. “Now get some sleep. I know you danced last night. I worry about you getting enough sleep.”

No way I was going to get back to sleep after all of this.

“Will do. Love you, Mom.”

“And I love you. It’s going to be okay, Kathryn.” She said that last bit really quick, like she was trying to convince me she wasn’t lying, or maybe convince herself. When she carried on, though, she wasn’t lying. “One way or another.”

We said our good-byes, I put my phone on the edge of the pedestal sink and gave my full attention to Boone.

I then called it down.

“She got a call. She’s not going either. She says we’re a united front. And she’s going to try to find a good time, soon, to sit down and chat with Brian.”

“I feel this is the worst possible time, and the best possible time seeing as your day is crap and it can’t get much worse, to share something with you that is likely to piss you off royally,” he announced.

Uh-oh.

I decided not to say anything.

He didn’t move from his casual-but-not-casual lounge against the door frame when he noted, “You know I looked into you.”

“Yeah,” I said that one word slowly, drawing it out.

“Well, when I do that kind of thing, I’m pretty thorough.”

I pressed my lips together.

This was invasive and we were going to have to have a chat about it.

It couldn’t be denied that his actions brought to light something that I needed to know, even if it was now a mess, though that was not his fault.

But even though I had nothing to hide, and even if we’d been together, Boone looking into me would be very much not okay.

However, now was not the time to discuss that.

“Cottoned on quick, the drain on you was your family, so that was my focus,” he continued.

I remained silent.

“So that line took me right to your dad.”

Shit.

“Boone.”

That was all I said, because depending on what he found out, that was all that could be said.

“It’s no different, girls and guys,” Boone said. “You either hope to God you grow up to be just like your mother, like you, or you hope you’re nothing like her. Lucky for me, I’m like you. I had a dad to look up to, I did, and I still do. Your brother didn’t.”

“I hear you.”

“I don’t know where that takes a guy, seein’ as I don’t have that. I just know there’s a good chance it doesn’t take him to a good place. Like, fuckin’ up his life, his family, like his father did, something somewhere along the way he probably vowed to himself he’d never do, and on some level knowing he was following in his dad’s footsteps, and drowning that shit in the bottom of a bottle because he can’t deal with that mammoth of a fuckup.”

“I think alcoholism is an illness that needs to be treated, Boone.”

“I agree. But there’s a catalyst that triggers the need not to think or feel and the addictive behavior carries on from that, Ryn. And you can’t treat something when you don’t know its cause.”

He was undoubtedly right.

“How much do you know about Dad?” I asked.

“I know you don’t call him or see him, your brother doesn’t call him or see him, and he’s not on Angelica’s phone tree for when she needs a new outfit.”

Hmm.

Boone kept going.

“I know he had judgments against him for not paying child support. I know he counter-sued, alleging your mother was withholding you and your brother for visitation. And I know both you and Brian testified in front of a judge that those times you were supposedly withheld from him, he just didn’t show up.”

Well, court documents were public records.

So yeah, it was awesome to know (not) that somewhere out there the crap of my family life was available for anyone to read.