Page 74 of Things Good Girls Don't Do (Rock Canyon, Idaho 1)

Katie felt a lump form in her throat and thanked him. As they left the club, Becca asked, “So are you glad you came out? Did it take your mind off stuff?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It was fun.”

For a little while.

CHASE SAT AT his mother’s side, watching the pale, thin body that used to be so full of life wince with every breath. She had railed at Buzz for calling him, yelled at him for coming, but when the results had come back that he wasn’t a match for a transplant, she had cried. The doctor had warned them it was unlikely that another donor would come through in time, and Chase had wanted to smash his fist through something.

His mother was dying and he had almost missed saying good-bye.

Buzz had gone to get them coffee, and he watched his mother’s light blue eyes open, bleary and pain-filled. “Chase?”

He reached out to grasp her hands. “Yeah, I’m here.”

She sounded raspy as she said, “I am so sorry, baby. I couldn’t ask you to come. Not after I failed you so badly.”

He had heard her apologize several times, usually when her painkillers kicked in. “It’s okay; you did your best.”

She shook her head. “He left because of me.”

He’d heard this too, several times over the last week, and said, “Mom, it’s okay.”

“It was just once. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t.”

They’d had seven days to hash out the past, and Chase really didn’t know if he was better off knowing or not. His mother had confessed that she had cheated on his dad and when she wound up pregnant, she didn’t think it was possible that he belonged to the other man. It had been a one-night stand, after they’d had a fight, and when she found out, she had tried to forget about it, pretend it never happened. So she had kept her secret

, even as Chase has gotten older and his blue eyes had turned gray, not blue or brown like one of his parents. His father had asked her where those dark gray eyes came from, and she had said her mother, knowing full well it was a lie. Only one person she knew had eyes like that and she didn’t even know his last name. For five years they lived happily as a family, but the doubt had finally been too much for his father and he’d asked for a paternity test. When the results had come back, confirming his worst fear, that Chase wasn’t his, he had confronted Chase’s mother. She’d confessed to her transgression, but despite her heartfelt pleas for forgiveness, his father had left, and never come back.

When he’d been five, Chase was in an accident with his dad, and they had both been taken to the hospital, where his mother had met them. His father, as a way to put his mind at ease, asked the doctor for a paternity test and the doctor had told him solemnly, that based on Chase’s, his mothers and fathers blood types, there was no way he was his son. The child he had raised, built Lego cities with and kicked a soccer ball around with, wasn’t even his.

His father had confronted Chase’s mother that night and she’d confessed to her transgression. Despite her heartfelt pleas, his father had left, and never come back.

His mother had been overcome with guilt and grief. She hadn’t felt like she deserved Chase’s love, and his presence reminded her of her mistakes. So she had shut him out and tried to make things right in her own screwed-up way, looking for a man who would love Chase like a father, even if he wasn’t his.

But she had even failed at that. She had been so self-absorbed, she couldn’t tell him she was sick, couldn’t bear to ask him for anything.

It had taken him a day to absorb what she’d told him, and another for him to come to a decision. He’d already forgiven her. It was his father’s choice to walk out on them. It was a reflection of him, not her. And as to her distancing herself from him, he had forgiven her a long time ago.

But she was so doped up on painkillers she kept saying the same things to him. The same apology over and over, and the pain and anguish she felt hurt him more than the rest of it.

“Shhh. Stop. I forgive you, Mom. Just stop.” She started crying brokenly, and he held her hand tighter. “It wasn’t Dad’s leaving that hurt. It was that I thought you stopped loving me.”

She shook her head and squeezed his hand. “You are the best thing I have ever done. I never stopped loving you.”

Chase brought her hand up, kissed it, and held it against his face. He closed his eyes. His mother’s voice, broken and strained with pain, started singing, “‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine . . .’”

In a hospital room, filled with the late afternoon light and the sound of his dying mother’s voice, Chase wept for the first time in sixteen years.

Chapter Fifteen

* * *

THE SERVICE WAS held two days later, with just a few of his mother’s friends, Buzz, and Chase attending. She had bought a plot for herself and Buzz, which he was a little surprised by, since she had always struggled with money. They buried her in the lush green grass with two white roses lying on top of her coffin.

He really didn’t want to go to the funeral reception, but Buzz insisted. As he sat among a small crowd of people in their later years, he heard stories about his mother. Stories of humor and antics. Stories about how stubborn she was, or that she was the best friend in the world.

And then a short, stooped lady with blue-gray hair sat next to him, a sad smile on her wrinkled face. “Do you remember me?”

He didn’t, not really, and said so. She just smiled a little wider and said, “I’m Mrs. Dowry. I lived next to you for years and would watch you after school while your mother was working.”

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