Page 57 of Before the Storm

Tara let out a soft laugh. “I don’t know.”

“I never know,” Cindy said. “Maybe we should take a page from your father’s book and pretend we know everything.”

“No,” Tara said, taking the glass from her mother. “I don’t want to do anything like him.”

Cindy tilted her head. “I do love him, you know. I always will.”

Tara remembered her many years of loving Donnie. She remembered Josie pleading with her to reconsider her love for him.

She remembered pushing Josie away only because she blamed Josie for Donnie leaving.

Women were complicated creatures. They loved with reckless abandon. Sometimes, they loved in the wrong direction. But was love ever a bad thing?

Tara touched her mother’s shoulder. “I think I understand.”

Cindy’s face crumpled. After a startled gasp, she said, “Nobody’s ever said that to me before. Certainly, he never did.”

Chapter Seventeen

January 2025

Seattle

It had been a long time since Josie slept this hard. Maybe it was because of the jet lag, or perhaps it was yet another result of cancer, but after Josie collapsed in the guest room at her mother and father’s place, she slept for nearly twelve hours and awoke to another day of rain. Someone, presumably Tara, had put Josie’s suitcase in the guest bedroom, and Josie scrambled through her belongings to find her medicine and take what she needed. Tara had also put a glass of water on the end table by her bed. She’d thought of everything.

What had happened since Josie went to sleep? Josie was suddenly frightened. She’d left Tara alone with the monster who was their mother.

At least their father wasn’t here.

Don’t be cruel, Josie, she thought. He was dead. And he should be pitied because he never really knew how to love.

But she was still heavy with relief that he wasn’t here.

Josie crept down the hall to use the bathroom and put her wig back on. When she left, she heard the radio playing downstairs and soft, muttering voices. Slowly, she shifted downstairs to find her mother and Tara, both in pajamas, drinking coffee and watching the rain. Neither of them was speaking, and neither of them had noticed Josie yet, either.

Josie took a moment to really see what was before her. Tara looked as exhausted as Josie felt, with big bags under her eyes and her hair in wild curls. Their mother wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she looked tiny and brittle. A few slices of toast were in the toaster, but neither of them had gotten up to retrieve them when they’d popped up. They were lost in thought.

Had Cindy told Tara everything yet? Josie tried to gauge the temperature in the room and decided Cindy had. She’d have to interrogate Tara later. She didn’t want to force Cindy through the narrative all over again—not during the week she’d lost her life partner and love.

Josie took a hesitant step, and Tara flung up to help her, nearly spilling her coffee.

“Hi! Good morning!” Tara looked at Josie as though Tara herself had spent the past twelve hours drowning. “How did you sleep?”

Cindy was on her feet, too, wringing her hands and hurrying to the coffee pot.

“You want a cup?” Cindy asked. “It’s from this coffee roaster in Capitol Hill. Fancy place.”

“I’ll just have tea,” Josie said, “or water.”

“Why don’t you sit down,” Tara said. “Would you like some toast? Eggs?”

“I can make anything,” Cindy agreed, doting on Josie in a way that suggested Cindy knew all about Josie’s cancer. But Josie guessed that wasn’t a surprise. Josie looked like she was onthe brink of dying; she felt like it, too. It was written all over her face.

Her mother knew.

Tara shot Josie a look that meantI’m sorry. She knows.

Josie raised her shoulders and walked to the kitchen table to sit on the other side of Tara. Tara brewed a cup of tea and set it in front of Josie while Cindy set about sweeping butter and jam over a piece of toast and putting it on a plate for Josie. Josie couldn’t remember being doted on by her mother like this—not even when she’d been very small.

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