Page 44 of Before the Storm

Suddenly, Winnie was in the living room with a backpack on. Tara had fully forgotten she was still there.

“Sal’s mom is here,” Winnie said. “See you later.”

“Okay. Be safe tonight, honey. I love you.” Tara tried to catch her daughter’s eye, but Winnie was already out the door and whipping away.

Tara burst into tears and fell on the sofa. In words she never would have said aloud in front of Winnie, she cursed Donnie for trying to do this to her. “He won’t get away with it,” Tara muttered.

All she wanted right now was to call Josie. She wanted Josie to say Donnie was always a loser. He was always horrible for you. He was always the worst.

Tara also wanted to apologize for the last few months she and Josie had spent together.

I chased you out, she imagined herself saying.I blamed you for Donnie cheating on me. But in reality, you were always trying to protect me. You were always there for me and Winnie. And now, Winnie and I need you more than ever.

But Josie lived in Manhattan with her husband, Joe, and her stepdaughters, Leah and Violet. Josie had gotten married three months ago. She and Tara weren’t speaking at the time, so Tara hadn’t been invited.

It was hard to believe Tara hadn’t attended Josie’s wedding.

Of course, she’d stalked the photographs endlessly on social media. In them, Josie looked glamorous, kissing and holding the arm of her handsome and tall accountant husband. There were photos of Josie with her stepdaughters, all in a line, pretendingthey’d been family forever. Winnie and Tara should have been in that photo, too.

Well, Winnie was actually invited to the wedding. But Tara had torn up the invitation and never told Winnie about it.

She regretted that now. It felt terribly petty.

How had things gotten so out of control?

All Tara wanted right now was a glass of wine. But later, she’d have to pick Winnie up from Sal’s (whoever Sal was), and there was no way in heck she’d drink and drive, not even a little bit, not when she was feeling so upset.

Tara faced the evening by herself.

But at ten, she parked outside Sal’s place and got out to knock on the door. She didn’t like to be one of those parents who waited in the car and honked the horn. Besides, she really wanted to know who Sal was. Boy or girl?

But when she got to the front porch, she heard the familiar sound of her daughter crying.

“I don’t understand,” she wept. “You said last week that…”

“Things change, Winnie,” a teenage boy said back. “You have to accept that.”

Winnie sobbed harder.

Tara’s gut felt twisted. Winnie and male Sal were around the corner, maybe a little off the porch, and Tara didn’t want to walk up to them and break up the breakup. Tara could remember her own first breakup, how she’d sobbed to her parents in the living room and slept in Josie’s bedroom upstairs. But Winnie refused to talk to Tara about her life. She didn’t have an older sister. She didn’t have Josie anymore.

Maybe Winnie felt just as alone as Tara did.

“I have to go,” Winnie blared suddenly. “That’s my mom’s car.”

“Okay. Take care, Winnie,” Sal said.

Winnie answered horribly. She said words Tara had never taught her to say. And then, she appeared in the yard and stormed up to Tara’s car, leaping into the passenger seat and slamming the door behind her. Tara had to act quickly. She hurried back to the driver’s side and started the engine in a rush. Winnie gave no indication she noticed her. Her face was in her hands. So Tara drove through the night, all the way back home, without saying a word. She could feel her daughter’s heart breaking. There was nothing to be done.

She wanted to say,These things happen. Boys can be cruel.

She wanted to say,Let’s go back and TP his house!

But of course, Tara wasn’t the kind of mother to TP a house. She wasn’t the kind of mother who knew what to say, either.

So she parked in the garage and said, as sweetly as she could, “I’m going to make popcorn?”

Winnie shook her head. “I just want to go to bed.”

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