Episode 564: Need You Know

Katherine shook her head and reached for her phone. The girl was a good actress, for all her mother knew that’s just what this was¾an act.

Adria had fallen from her father’s good graces for the moment, so perhaps she sought her mother’s support. Much the way she’d bamboozled Katherine with the wedding plans that hadn’t turned out to be a wedding, but a play, with her parents footing the bill.

Katherine refused to be taken for another ride. She would not invest her heart in a relationship with her daughter only to discover it wasn’t real.

Katherine scrolled through her emails, some important, none enough to stop her eyes from wandering to the door every other second. How long would her baby stand there weeping? She tried another email. It read like gibberish.

She looked to the door again. Then down. Adria had slid to the floor, her slender limbs in a heap, her sleeves working overtime yet still no match for the streams running down her cheeks.

Katherine set aside her phone. She nibbled her lips raw, watching her youngest daughter seemingly fall apart and making no effort to help put her back together again. She stood. Her fingers clutched the edge of the table. She ripped them away and started forward, not stopping until she crouched before Adria.

After a moment’s hesitation and an eye roll from the part of her that still thought her daughter may be duping her, Katherine gathered her little girl in her arms. She hadn’t done that nearly enough over the years. It was awkward at first. Sad. Then Adria snuggled into Katherine, and it was almost as if neither of them had ever been disappointed in the other.

Episode 565: The Call