Episode 454: Next Lifetime

Her kids.

Katherine’s heart swelled with emotion. Love. Shame. Regret. Second chances with each of them. Chances to make up for the ways she’d let each down in the past. Not supporting her eldest daughter’s choices. Not showing her son that love requires effort and faithfulness. Not being there for her youngest daughter.

The thought hurried Katherine through her call, determined to make the time for Adria now. To make it right with all of them. Maybe it was too late for any of them to need the mother she should have been in their formative years.

But she hoped it wasn’t too late to offer them what they may need now.

First up, standing just inside the living room, her youngest child, Adria, gorgeous long blond hair flowing down her back, looking so grown up for her still so few years in a pretty teal dress, beaming at her red-headed fiance, Ryley.

Katherine went to her baby, and greeted her with a warm hug, unable to help thinking of the number of times she’d been either too busy or too distracted or too self-involved to give her daughter such a small, such an important moment.

"How are the wedding plans?" Katherine asked, certain, aside from Ryley, those plans had to be her daughter’s chief passion now. "Remember, if you need me for anything, I’m here."

"All I need is you there on my big day," Adria put forth. Ryley’s arm immediately slid around Addie, protectively pulling her into him, gazing at her with intense worry in his eyes.

"Of course I’ll be there," Katherine promised, so sorry that it was even in question, praying she had enough goodness in her to be better than the reputation she’d clearly earned.

Episode 455: Here In Pleasantville