I gave a stiff nod. “I’ll keep that in mind, Officer.”

His lips quirked in a lopsided grin as he motioned toward Wheeler. “Your boyfriend is pretty hard to forget, so try not to do anything in the view of witnesses. They’ll be able to pick him out of a lineup with no problem.”

Wheeler let out a grunt in response as the cop moved out of the way so the server could put his tray down next to our table. The sheriff muttered a subdued good-bye, and before he started shoving food in his face, Wheeler asked me if I was okay.

I shrugged and reached out to snag a piece of bread off his plate. “A lot of people in this town let me down before I left the first time. I should have known better than to come back but I did, and I was let down even worse the second time. That’s how I know no one is going to help my mom. If they don’t see it or speak of it, it’s not really happening in their mind. But it is happening to way too many people, women and children, and even men.”

“So, we’ll do what we can to help because we know it’s happening and we refuse to look the other way.”

I gave him a sad smile and told him, “I really fucking love you, Hudson.”

He replied by shoving a big bite of brisket in his mouth and chomping away happily. We killed the rest of the afternoon driving around town so I could show him my old haunts. Through now wide-open eyes, I could see that there wasn’t anything particularly special about my home town, which made being back slightly less scary. After I talked to my mom, saw for myself that she was alive and well, I knew I would never be back. There was nothing here for me and I wasn’t leaving anything that mattered behind.

We parked around the corner from my childhood home and had to wait for an hour until my father’s sleek, black Mercedes SUV pulled out of the driveway. Men of the cloth were supposed to be humble and modest … my dad was neither of those things. He liked to flaunt his power and position in everything that he did.

“He looks like a dick.” Wheeler’s softly muttered words made me giggle when all I wanted to do was cry.

“He is.” I turned my face to his and leaned in for a kiss when my dad drove around the corner so that there wasn’t even the slightest chance he would see my face. Wheeler kissed me back, slipping in some tongue and leaving my bottom lip wet. When he pulled back we were both breathing hard and it wasn’t from fear. He slipped out of the car and I followed with the key to the house that had never really been a home, clutched in my shaking fingers.

I stopped being able to breathe when I touched the doorknob. It turned easily under my hand and swung open with a barely noticeable creak. The interior of the house was dark and silent. There were no lights on, no TV going, no sounds of voices or life anywhere. It was like walking into a tastefully decorated tomb.

I looked over my shoulder as Wheeler pressed into my back, shutting the door behind him. “Their room is at the back of the house. The floor creaks, so tread lightly.”

He jerked his chin in understanding as we started to creep through the dreary hallways that had no pictures or art on the walls. Everything was so sterile, made to look like a picture in a magazine. I clearly remembered my mother scrubbing and cleaning every surface until her fingers bled to keep my father happy. Without fail, he would come home after a service or a fund-raiser and find some microscopic piece of lint or dust she missed. His barely controlled fury would follow and that inevitably led to not just my mother bursting into tears.

I trailed my fingers along the wall like I used to do when I was little, walking back in time as memories assaulted me from all sides. I remembered the heavy weight of repression and judgment that seemed to hang in the air in this house. I remembered the absence of warmth, how everything felt cold even though it was never below seventy degrees outside. I remembered sleepless nights worried about my sister and hating how perfect I had to be to make up for her perceived failings in my father’s eyes. I remembered the suffocating feeling as every ounce of joy and light was sucked out of me.

I liked the memories I was making now much better.

We hit the closed door to my parents’ bedroom. I put a palm on the wood and took a second to brace myself for whatever might lie beyond. I was expecting the worst since my dad wouldn’t let anyone speak to her, but I had to hope for the best. I felt Wheeler put a hand between my shoulder blades, letting me know that he was there regardless of what we were about to face.

I turned the knob and pushed the door open, my eyes immediately meeting my mother’s. She was sitting in a chair by the window of the room, in the darkness, doing nothing but staring. She looked older than she did the last time I saw her. There was more silver in her dark hair and her bronze complexion had deep lines carved into it around her eyes and next to her mouth. She had also lost a ton of weight. Her arms looked like twigs where they stuck out of the bulky sweater she was wearing even though the house was warm enough to make me sweat.

“Mom?” The word escaped as a question because she looked like a stranger. She looked like a woman that had been beaten down and forgotten.

Her eyes, the same unusual light and golden brown as mine, blinked at me sluggishly. “Poppy?” She lifted a hand to her throat and started to rock back and forth in her seat. “Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming.”

Wheeler stepped around me into the room and hit the lights. We all blinked in reaction, and the full extent of how badly my mom was wasting away hit me. Her cheeks were sunken in. Her collarbone was sharp, prominent points and her hands looked like they belonged on a skeleton. She looked like a corpse that hadn’t been put in the ground yet.

“You’re not dreaming, Mom. I’m here to help you. I want you to come with me to Denver. I want you to leave Dad and let me help you. I’ve been worried.”

Her eyes blinked again and it took them an unnaturally long time to open back up. “You’re here, but you can’t be here. It’s going to make your father angry.”

“He’s always angry because something is fundamentally wrong with him. When was the last time you ate something?” I walked over to her and crouched down in front of her, putting my hands on her knees.

“Your father told me I was letting myself go. He thinks I’m getting old and fat. I’ve been dieting.”

She was starving herself for the jackass. “You don’t look well, Mom. Let me help you. I’ll take you somewhere safe where they can make you better.”