“Maddie, your secret admirer is here.” Jenna Andrews winks cheekily at me. “Someone has a crush on Maddie,” she continues in a sing-song.

My cheeks heat. Jenna’s voice has carried across the room, and the customer entering the coffee shop has clearly heard her.  

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Jenna always does this. Every. Single. Week. My boss has visions of being a matchmaker. She’s decided, along with my sister Misti, that I should end my dating drought and go out with the tall blond man.

“Will you shush?” I frown at Jenna, who grins back, unabashed, and moves aside to allow me to wait on the customer. My so-called secret admirer comes up to the counter. “Your friend’s not subtle, is she?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

I want to die. Or kill Jenna. Either one. “Ignore her,” I mutter, unable to meet the guy’s eyes. “What can I get you?”

“Tall coffee please,” he says. “No milk, no sugar, though I wouldn’t say no to a chocolate chip cookie.”

“Coming right up.”

I pour the coffee into a cup and put the cookie on a plate, my thoughts elsewhere. Jenna’s been trying to get me to date for months, insisting that there’s something wrong with my extreme disinterest in men.

She’s probably right. Had she tried to set me up nine years ago, when I first moved to Calgary, I would have cooperated with her agenda.

Of course, nine years ago, my heart had been shredded to pieces by Cameron Drake, and I was desperate to heal it. I’m wiser now. I’ve tried dating. I even had a boyfriend once, though it didn’t survive the two-month mark.

The heat, the fire, the passion I had with Cam… that’s gone forever. And all of Jenna’s subtle-as-a-hammer matchmaking can’t change that.

“So,” the man says. “Would you like to go out sometime?”  

I can see Jenna out of the corner of my eye. She’s doing a gleeful little hip wiggle, her signature celebration move. Oh dear. She’s really not going to like my answer. “I’m sorry,” I tell the guy regretfully. “I don’t date.”

“At all?” he asks, his eyebrows rising. “Or just me?”

“At all.” I soften the sting of my rejection with a small smile. “Sorry.”

He shrugs. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” He opens his wallet to pay for his drink, and hands me a ten-dollar bill and a business card. “If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

I watch him leave, but I’m not seeing him. I’m seeing a tall, broad-shouldered man, with dark hair and stubble grazing his cheek. Eyes that change from stormy gray to the clearest blue, depending on his mood. I’m seeing the only man I was ever in love with, the man I ran away from. Cameron Drake.

“Oh my god.” At my side, Jenna examines the card I’m holding, her eyes wide. “That’s Drew Knight.”

“Who?”

“Drew Knight. Owns half the oil fields in Canada. Richest guy in Calgary. Do you not pay attention, Maddie?” Her voice rises in a shrill pitch of excitement. “Oh my god, Drew Knight asked you out, and you said no.”

“I’m not interested,” I reply, handing her the card. “You call him.”

At nine at night, the coffee shop is deserted. I’m preparing to close up when my phone rings. Must be Misti, I think, but the voice on the other end isn’t my eighteen-year old sister.

“Madison Morland?” A woman asks tentatively. “My name is Irene Kirkland. I’m calling from St. Michael’s Hospital. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your mother passed away a few hours ago from a heroin overdose.”

The news shouldn’t take me by surprise. Given my mother’s long history of drug and alcohol abuse, I should have been prepared for this phone call.

I’m not. My throat closes and grief overtakes me. Angie Morland was a horrible mother, but she was the only mother I had.

“Madison?” she repeats. “Are you there?”

“Yeah.” I find the words with difficulty. “Sorry.” My mind races. I’ll have to arrange a funeral and figure out how to pay for it. My mom had driven away most of her friends with her substance abuse problem, but people will still need to be notified.

I can’t do all of that from Calgary. I’m going to have to go back to Ontario. The province I haven’t set foot in for nine long years.

Ms. Kirkland kindly gives me the names of some inexpensive funeral homes, and I scribble them down on a roll of receipt tape, still in a daze. It’ll take me two long days to drive back to Toronto. Misti might not want to go to the funeral, but I’ll have to tell her. My dad might want to know, but even if I wanted to talk to him, I don’t know how to reach him. The last I heard, he’d been arrested again.

I have to call Jenna. Ask for a week off. I chew on my knuckle absently as I contemplate if my bank balance will survive the strain. Misti’s going to need money for textbooks in the fall, and I was counting on a good summer of tips to be able to pay for them.

My mother’s dead.

The world seems to slow down. I blink my tears away. I can’t cry, not now. There’s too many things that need to be done before I go back home.

Home. Toronto.

I remember the day I’d left far too well. It was a beautiful sunny day, but I’d seen none of it. I’d just left Cameron, slipping away without saying goodbye. Knowing that there was nothing to be said. Nothing that needed to be said. I’d been in tears as I went back to my mother’s apartment. She was passed out on the couch, an empty bottle of rye on the floor next to her. Sitting in a corner was Misti, struggling to ignore the desolation in front of her so she could finish her homework.

I’d known then that I had to take her away. It was too late for me; I was always going to be branded as the girl whose mother was a junkie and whose father was in jail. But Misti’s life could be different. She could go to college, make something of herself.

I left my mother a note explaining what I was going to do, and we drove away. There were jobs in Calgary, so we headed west.

Two days later, my mother called me, angry and bitter, telling me she never wanted to see either of us again.

Now she’s dead.

I should call Misti, but I need to build up my courage for that. With shaking hands, I dial Jenna. When she picks up, I quickly explain the situation. “Of course you can take time off,” she says at once. “Maddie, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m leaving you in the lurch.” Jenna has saved money for years to be able to start her own business. I feel terrible about abandoning her.

“Of course not,” she scoffs. “It’s summer. Peter doesn’t have any classes, so he’s been begging me for more hours. We’ll be fine, Maddie. Don’t worry about us. Take all the time you need.”

Jenna knows the circumstances of my departure from Toronto, my estrangement from my family. Her voice softens in sympathy. “How are you feeling?”  

“I don’t know.” Words are difficult. “It hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“Is there anything I can do? Do you need money?”

That’s Jenna for you. She’d give you the shirt off her back with a smile on her face. A lump rises in my throat. “I’ll manage.” I don’t know how--funerals aren’t cheap-- but I’ll figure it out.

Once I hang up, I stare blankly at the counter. I have to tell Misti.

It’s the last week of college. Misti’s done with her finals. She’s probably partying with her friends right now. I should let her enjoy herself.

You can’t put this moment off, Maddie.

I take a deep breath and call her. Her phone rings once, twice. On the third ring, she picks up. The loud music in the background tells me I was right; she’s at a party. “Maddie,” she yells, screaming to be heard over the noise. “I’m so sorry, I totally forgot to call you.”

I should find a gentle way of breaking the news, but the words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Mom’s dead.”

“Oh.” She pauses. “Did she overdose?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Yeah. She did, sweetie.”  

There’s a false hardness in my baby sister’s voice. “She had it coming,” she says.

I know Misti. She’s hurting, but she won’t show it. She’s tough. You had to be tough to survive growing up in our house. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning to drive to Toronto.” I gulp. “I have to make the funeral arrangements.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“You will?” I didn’t expect this.

“Yeah,” she replies. “It’s a long drive. You shouldn’t have to do it alone.” She swallows. “I won’t let you do it alone.”

We’re not talking about the drive anymore; we both know it. We’re talking about saying goodbye to a woman who rarely loved us, who made us cry so much more than she made us smile.

My throat feels sore, scratchy. “Thanks, baby,” I tell her softly. “I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”

On a normal day, Misti would have whined about our early start, but this isn’t a normal day. “Okay, Maddie,” she says. “See you then.”