Chapter 10

Trina knelt on the floor of Hunter’s guest-room closet, dumping shoes into the last of her suitcases. Some of these shoes had been part of her life for longer than Phoebe had, and she was way overdue to move on. When she got to L.A.—when she got to L.A. and was established in her job and making some money, that was—she’d have to get herself some better clothes. New shoes. If she could afford them. It was going to be expensive, living there. She’d started looking at apartment listings, and whoa, baby. She was grateful that Stefan had found them a temporary solution.

She and Phoebe were leaving tomorrow morning, crack of dawn. All that was left was the chili dinner and a viewing of Inside Out and one more night spent in Hunter’s house. She’d promised herself—sworn, really—that she would not go into his bedroom to comfort him if he cried out. Because it hurt worse now, knowing that the same stunning heat still simmered between them but that this time, it wasn’t enough to bring them together.

He’d told her—before—that his marriage to Dee had been bitter and confining—not because Dee was a bad person, but because they’d disappointed each other. We never should have been together, he’d told her. We were only together because of Clara. Because we couldn’t keep it in our pants. Sex wasn’t enough.

No. It never was. If Stefan had taught her anything, it had been that. It was a damn good thing she was getting out of here before she had a chance to forget that.

Although there was still a part of her that wanted to scream at Hunter: I know your marriage sucked, but we weren’t like that. Let me show you! Let me show you again.

But if their encounter the other night in bed hadn’t convinced him, she had no idea what would. He hadn’t registered even a faint protest when she’d told him she was purchasing plane tickets.

It made her feel like weeping.

“Trina?”

Her name was barely a whisper. She turned to find Clara behind her, arms crossed protectively. Her heart gave a crazy squeeze.

When Hunter had first left, Trina had wondered if it would be hard for Clara. To be the other girl, not Trina’s own. But gradually over the last year, Clara had won Trina over completely. It had been a series of tiny surrenders: The first time Clara had slipped her hand into Trina’s, and a small sigh had escaped from Trina’s lips, like the settling right before sleep. The first time Clara had cried in her arms, and Trina’s eyes had filled. The first time Trina had jumped hotly to Clara’s defense when Phoebe had taken a sisterly swipe at her friend, claws out. Mama Bear, now, to two.

Or she had been.

She supposed the process of coming to feel that Clara was hers would reverse itself. After all, Clara was in good hands.

“What is it, hon’?”

The voice got even smaller. “I got my period. Just now.”

“Well, hey,” Trina said. “That’s—”

She met Clara’s eyes.

“Yeah. I could get, all, ‘Wow, honey, congratulations, you’re really a woman now,’ or—” She scrutinized Clara’s face. “We could just skip that?”

Clara bobbed her head at that option.

“Do you need pads?”

“Yes,” Clara whispered.

Trina dug in her packed suitcase. She’d been wondering how close Clara and Phoebe were to this moment.

“You know how to—?”

More emphatic nodding.

“Go ahead into the bathroom and try it out, and if you have any questions at all, come back and get me.”

Clara disappeared with the pad squeezed tight into the palm of her hand, as if she could make it—and all that it implied—disappear. She was back a few minutes later.

“Trina?”

If Clara’s voice got any quieter, it wouldn’t be audible at all. “What, hon’?”

“What do I do when I need more pads?”

“Well,” Trina said. “I’ll give you the ones I have. And we can get some more at the grocery store or the drugstore.” She remembered quite clearly how humiliating this had all been. “I’ll pick some up for you.”

“But you’re leaving.”

Clara’s face looked very small and very innocent. Twelve struck Trina as very young to be going through such a big change. It was true that Clara had started developing a year or so ago, but—it wasn’t fair, girls getting their periods seemingly younger and younger.

“Your father—”

But even as the words started to come out of her mouth, she recalled the sense she’d had as a kid that only a mother—or at least someone’s mother—could do this particular brand of work.

So many times over the last year, she’d filled in where Clara’s mother couldn’t. She’d attended softball games and theater performances, tucked her in at bedtime, listened to stories from the day at school. But this—

It made Trina want to cry, actually. Because she remembered her own vulnerability, how tempting it had been to just not tell her mother at all. To bum feminine products off other girls and hide the evidence of her sudden progress toward adulthood.

But Clara hadn’t. She’d confided.

“I could—I could wait another few days to leave.” That would give Trina time to talk to Clara a little bit about what she was going through, make sure she knew what she was doing.

“Could you? Would you?”

She’d already put Stefan off the few weeks when she’d ignored his message, and these few more days. She’d have to call him. Make sure the job would wait. Hope his patience would hold out.

But she didn’t think she could walk away from Clara. Not now. And if she were being totally honest with herself, she wasn’t quite ready to walk away from Hunter yet, either.

She nodded. “That’ll give you time to tell your dad and we’ll get him up to speed—”

Clara was shaking her head violently.

“Sweetie—it’s not like he doesn’t know periods exist.”

It would be hard for Clara, entering adolescence without a mother. Trina had always known that. But in the face of this particularly strong evidence…

She had been too buried in her grief over losing Hunter—and losing, in the process, the only other person who knew anything about the intensity of what had passed between them—to reckon with this other loss. She’d just—

She’d failed to fully realize what it would mean to Clara for her to leave.

“We’ll figure this out, hon’,” she said. Because that was the best she could do. She didn’t know what the next step was, how you helped a twelve-year-old girl and her father navigate adolescence together. But—they’d figure it out.

She held out her arms, and Clara slid into them without hesitation, resting her fluffy red head against Trina’s shoulder. And Trina felt as if her heart would break with the pleasure of that hug, the trust—enough for the two of them.