A song sang in my heart. The sun had set, but everything around me seemed bright and fresh.

Mom was in the kitchen making spaghetti. Even she seemed renewed.

“It looks like you're feeling better,” I said.

She snapped her head around toward me. “No, I’ve got the shakes. I’ve puked three times today. My skin looks like I have hepatitis. And I’ve totally screwed up your life.”

I set my purse on the old worn table. “Come here.” I held my arms open and waited for her to walk into them, and she did. “You can do this, Mom.” I gave her a long, hard squeeze.

The truth was, she could generally do a few days. She was always remorseful when sober and angry when she slipped back into old habits.

Mom pushed away and went back to the stove where she dumped a package of pasta into the boiling water.

“What’s got you looking so happy?” She stirred the spaghetti until it wilted into the water.

I glanced at my reflection in the window. My eyes were no longer puffy, and there was some pink to my cheeks. “Wait here.” I raced to my car to grab the flowers. It had been a long time since flowers sat in the middle of our table. I turned them around to see whether there was a better, fuller side, but the vase was beautiful from every angle.

“You brought me flowers?” Mom’s eyes lit up, and her face brightened with a smile. Happiness looked good on her.

“I’m sharing my flowers with you.” I leaned in and sniffed at the beautiful blooms.

Mom turned back to stir the sauce. “Who are they from?”

I told her the story of Dex coming into the diner injured. “He’s super nice and really cute.”

“The not-so-bright one that crashed in the rain?” She gave me a haven’t-you-learned-anything look. “At least he has some class, but remember, after the flowers always comes heartbreak.”

“Not all men are bad, Mom.” It took a lot for me to say that because lately, my jerk-to-nice ratio was tipping toward jerk. “Just because you found the one tarnished penny in the bunch doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep looking for the shiny coin.”

“Where do you come up with that stuff? Last week you told me I was a couch potato in the gravy boat of life.”

I was surprised she remembered. “I like metaphors.”

“Okay, but you’re the only one who understands what in the hell you’re saying.”

“Not true.” The legs of the chair scraped across the linoleum floor and creaked when I took a seat. “All I was saying was, spending your day on the couch is not productive. It doesn’t make your life any better.”

Mom pounded the sauce spoon on the counter, sending a splatter of red specks onto the dingy white wall. “My life is over. All I have is Judge Judy and carbohydrates.”

This was where it all began. First the moment of sober reflection, followed by the pity party, chased by a bottle of hard liquor, and then concluding with whatever pain pills she could wrangle from her doctor.

“Do you blame me?” It was a question I asked myself all the time. Could I have done something different? I had a look that men gravitated to. Many girls would consider that a blessing. For me, it had been a curse until I figured out how to use it. Then it became a catastrophe because flirting was different from consent.

Mom reached into the cabinet above the stove. I held my breath and prayed she wouldn’t drag down a bottle. Work was tiring enough, but the daily searches and seizures were exhausting. At some point in the past year, I’d become the parent, and I was completely unqualified.

I exhaled loudly when I saw the colander. Could it be that things were finally looking up?

“I have a date tomorrow night.”

She turned and focused on the flowers. “With the diner boy?”

“Yes. His name is Dex.”

“Where’s he taking you?” This was my old mom sneaking past the fog.

I rose and grabbed two plates from the cupboard. “I’m meeting him at the Dushanbe Teahouse in Boulder.” I dished up the drained spaghetti, and Mom dumped a scoop of sauce on each plate. We plopped into opposite seats at the table.

Her brows lifted, and I waited for the smile that never came. “He can’t pick you up?”

I thought she’d be excited that I met someone, but instead, she fixated on a meaningless detail. “He works in Boulder, and it makes sense to meet him there.” There was no way I’d let her lack of excitement ruin my date. The Dushanbe Teahouse was a super cool place to go and not someplace I could afford on my own.

“Don’t settle, Hannah. Expect more and get more.” It was good advice if I’d actually seen it applied, but Mom was a do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do person.

“You should get out more. Maybe date.”

She twirled the pasta around her fork. “The last time I dated, it didn’t work out well for you.”

“He didn’t rape me, Mom. He just put his fingers …”

“Hannah, please don’t say it. I can’t bear it.” She dropped her fork and pulled her hands to her ears. “I was supposed to protect you. It was my job to make sure you were safe.”

I really hated it when she played the martyr. She lowered her hands when I swatted at them. “You know what, Mom? Stop being the damn victim. I’m the one that got fingered by the asshole. You’re the one that stopped him. You did protect me, and then you shut down and gave up.”

“I lost my job.” She shoved her plate forward as if she were finished after the first bite.

“Yes, you did, but you could do something else. It’s not my dream to schlep plates and pour coffee, but it puts pasta on the table.” I shoved her plate back toward her. “Eat before you have bigger problems than a pickled liver and a bad attitude.” I wanted to crawl under the table and hide. I was often snarky, but I was rarely disrespectful to my elders.

“Your mouth is going to get you into trouble.”

“It already has.” It was my mouthing off at Cameron that got me a fist to the face, or so he’d claimed. That purple cheek had gone unnoticed by Mom because she’d been in a particularly low place. Drunk and passed out on the carpet for days, to be specific.

“I can’t stay here and take care of you forever. I have dreams too, Mom.”

“Then leave.”

These were the times I wanted to throw my hands in the air and scream that I quit, but I couldn’t quit on the ones I loved. “That’s not what families do. You fought for me, I’ll fight for you, but you have to fight for yourself too. No more booze or pills. When you feel desperate, take a walk or come to the diner and have some pie.”

“You can’t make enough pie to fill my desperate moments.”

“Maybe not. All I know is that you have to find something else to fill your void.”

“You quit school for me. What’s filling your void?” But she went back to eating, which was a victory.

“I work, I have friends, and now I have a date.” After thinking I would never find the right guy, I was finally filled with hope.

A loud thud came from the front door. When I opened it, I found my sister standing on the stoop with tears in her eyes.

“I lost my key,” she cried.

I was shocked to see Stacey standing in front of me. She was supposed to be cramming for her finals, not knocking at the door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I stepped aside so she could enter.

Stacey yanked a big duffle through the door and plopped it in the middle of the living room.

It wasn’t the type of bag someone brought for a short stay. She was back for good.

“I’m homesick.”

My intuition told me there was a story behind her sudden appearance and far more to it than those two simple words. “What’s going on, Stacey?”

She pulled me in for a hug. “Nothing, I just miss you guys.” She held her nose high. “Is that spaghetti I smell?” And she was off to the kitchen. Stacey had the evasion techniques of a ninja and the stubbornness of a bull.