Page 63 of Last Resort

Chance shrugged. “You need to eat and we need to talk. Might as well kill two birds.”

“Talk?”

“Talk,” Chance said firmly. “Well, you need to talk and I need to listen.”

She sat down at the kitchen island, and he pushed some food toward her to get her to eat. She took each bite slowly, as if each mouthful brought her closer to a firing squad.

He sat down next to her with his own plate. “Before we start, I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

She looked over at him, still chewing. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“This whole time, I’ve been more concerned about myself and my feelings than yours. I didn’t even ask the most basic question.”

“Which is?”

“Do you want to be a mom?”

“You did ask me. You asked me in the hospital if I was keeping the baby.”

He nodded. “I know. But that’s not the same thing. What I’m asking you now is if youwantto be a mom.”

She swallowed, setting her fork down. “I do, but...” She trailed off to silence.

“But what? Whatever it is, speak it.”

“My mom is pretty unstable. She was addicted—isaddicted—to drugs.” Maci stared down at her plate, moving a piece of pancake around in circles. “When I was younger it was mostly booze like my dad, but by the time I was a teenager she’d moved on to harder stuff. The type of drugs you don’t get away from without professional help. Not that she’s ever wanted help.”

His heart ached for Maci already. “That’s really hard. I had no idea.”

“Studies show that addiction can be genetic.” She stared down at her plate. “That was true in my case.”

Chance’s stomach dropped, but he forced himself not to say anything. He needed tolisten.

“I started dabbling in middle school. Pot first, then harder stuff as I got older. By the time I was seventeen, I dropped out of school to be my dealer’s live-in girlfriend. If I wanted a fix, all I had to do was ask. And do whatever he wanted, of course.”

The implications of what she was saying made Chance want to throw up.

She looked up at him. “Whatever you’re thinking to put that expression on your face, you’re right. I did it all. Prostituted myself for drugs. I’m not the type of person who should be raising a child. Especially not yours.”

He frowned. “Especially not mine? What does that mean?”

“It means, look at your life!” She waved her hand around. “You have this great, tight-knit family who would do anything for you. You’re the best person I’ve ever met, and you’ll be an even better father. Why do you deserve to be saddled with my baggage forever?”

“Stop.” He’d promised his mother he’d listen, but he wasn’t going to let Maci tear herself apart like this. “The past only defines us as much as we let it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell that to a greeting card company, Chance. This is real life. Our choices always come back to haunt us.”

“Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but that doesn’t matter. You’re clean now, right? Been sober for at least as long as I’ve known you.”

There was no way she could’ve run the office with such efficiency if she had a drug problem. She was never late, rarely called in sick and was way too sharp to be intoxicated. They would’ve noticed.

“Yes, I finally got sober a little after my twentieth birthday. My boyfriend got violent one night and I ended up in the hospital. A nurse helped get me into a program and I got clean.”

“You got your life together.”

She shrugged. “The program helped me. Helped me get clean, helped me get my GED, helped me get some work-training classes under my belt.”

For the first time, she’d had a support network, and look at what she’d done once she had it—dragged herself completely out of the pit. “You accepted the help that was offered and changed your life. Everybody would call that admirable.”

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