Apparently, I missed about five thousand phone calls last night. I had left my phone at the theater last night, and then last night happened.

All of last night happened.

My thighs are jelly and I need a shower to wash off... everything.

And now, it’s five a.m., and Mark is at my house with a box of donuts.

“You don’t have to do it,” he says.

“Could you really cancel?” I ask.

He runs a hand over his jaw. “I mean, your mother died twelve hours ago.”

“I think I’m still in shock,” I tell him.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

Behind me I hear the guys moving around, stirring, and getting dressed. “Uh, sure,” I say, leading him past the living room and through the hall to the kitchen.

But Brecken is already there, making coffee.

“Uh, hey,” he says to Mark, nodding.

Mark frowns. “Were you here last night?” he asks him.

I raise my eyebrows. “That’s not really your business.”

“Your mother would have a fit,” he says as Sawyer and Arrow walk in the kitchen.

“I’m starved,” Sawyer says, reaching for an apple fritter from the donuts Mark has set on the table.

“Guess I should have brought more,” he says as Vaughn and North come in half dressed. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“Good. Because I doubt I’d have given you an answer you’d like to hear.”

Mark’s brows crease. “What’s gotten into you, Lark?”

Mark’s known me since I was a young performer, just learning about acrobatics. He knows how eccentric my mother was, but he never judged, never pressed. He looked for talent and he saw it in me.

“I’m not what you think,” I tell him, wanting to admit the one thing that has been on my mind since Remedy told me about our heritage last night. “I can only do what I do on stage because of this ring and some sort of magic I was born with.”

I hold it up to him and leans in, looking at the ring.

Running a hand over his jaw, Mark pushes his lips forward in thought. “Honey, I don’t care if your mom used some voodoo magic on you, if you drank a potion or cast a spell, I just care about what you can do, not why you can do it.”

“But doesn’t it change everything? I don’t deserve the show. I don’t deserve any of this.”

“Deserve?” Mark bats the air with his hand, sighing. Reaching for a mug he pours himself coffee as if done with the talk.

“Look,” he says, turning back to me. “Show business is just like life. No one deserves a damn thing. But sometimes you’re lucky. You meet the right person when you are nine years old, like you did when we met. Or you happen to have a mother who is a witch, and who gives you a magic ring. Do you deserve a mother who loved you with all that she was? No. Look at these men,” Mark says pointing to my hawks.

“They grew up in a group home, without a family,” he says. “Pulled up their bootstraps and managed to catch a big break. Did they not deserve a mother like you had? Of course they did.”

I swallow, trying to follow.

“Look, Lark,” he says. “There’s an old saying: fortune favors the brave. I figure that’s the best I can do. Be brave, and hope it goes in my favor. Take a chance, a risk. Use what I got and make the best of it. But no one deserves a Vegas show. So, if you have it, don’t waste it. Don’t second guess as to why. Just go all in, with all that you are.”

“You don’t think less of me?”

“I think all the magic in the world doesn’t change the fact you are the hardest working woman on this strip. You fought for your show. You don’t do anything halfway. You go all in: heart, mind, soul.”

“If people knew, they would think I didn’t earn this,” I say. It’s a relief to admit to him my deepest fears.

“Why do you care what people think? Forget them and own it. Own who you are. What you were made to be. You may think a ring makes you special, but Lark, you were made to fly.”

I wrap my arms around him and cry into his arms. It’s such a comfort to have him erase my worries. “Thank you,” I say. “For believing in me.”

“Your mom would have had the right words for an opening day pep talk.” He shakes his head. “I hope it didn’t get too wordy there at the end.”

“You did good,” I tell him. Running my fingers under my eyes to wipe away the tears, I exhale.

“So, what do you think about tonight?” Arrow asks.

I look around my mother’s kitchen, at my hawks–my cast mates–and Mark, the casting director who has always had my back.

Letting them down is not an option. Besides, this performance can be a tribute to the woman who always believed in me. I may not have done anything to earn her love, but I had it.

And this show tonight will be my gift to her.

I don’t know what will come next. I’m not sure what it means to embrace all of me, the woman I was made to be–but I can step on stage.

Smiling, I pull back my shoulders. “I think the show must go on.”