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“She’s a spiritual advisor, and she’s helped me more than any doctor I’ve ever seen.”

I stared at her. I didn’t even know what to say.

Nothing was different.

It was all the same circle again and again. Maddy was right. Maddy was always right.

I felt sick. My breathing started to get shallow.

I had to leave before I had a panic attack. I got up and walked out of the bathroom without another word.

I felt like the house was spinning. I could barely make it down the stairs.

I knew what would happen now. The same things that always did: Mom, leaving in a blaze of glory. The police escorting her out if she wouldn’t go, her making a scene, or them coming later to take a report of all the things missing when she slips out in the night.

Or maybe she’d just stop getting out of bed altogether and then Neil would call me to ask what he should do. I’d get her up and take her to the hospital with opals in her pockets and then three days later she’d check herself out against doctor’s orders and vanish again.

I was devastated.

The inevitable hadn’t happened yet, but it would. It had already started.

I felt defeated and stupid, and horrible for Neil, whose clothes were on the lawn and cuff links and watches were missing because I hadn’t told him what Maddy said I should have told him from the very beginning.

And I couldn’t even cry about it. I didn’t have time. Because I would not let Neil come home to this mess, when it was all my fault for hoping and believing her when she said she was better. It was my fault she was even here.

I felt myself start to get small, the edges pulling in. The humiliation and disappointment making me want to isolate and disappear. I already knew I wouldn’t go to Justin’s tonight. I wouldn’t want to see anyone, wouldn’t want to socialize or be around the kids. It would be hard enough to see Maddy.

I grabbed a laundry basket and made my way outside, trying not to cry.

When I got to the lawn, Maddy was there. She was bagging up the clothes into trash bags.

“Hey,” she said, grimacing at a pair of Neil’s underwear that she’d picked up by the corner. “I didn’t take him for a Hanes guy.”

I was so relieved to see her, I almost broke down right then and there.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“I know. I’m gonna anyway.” She shoved the underwear into the bag.

My chin quivered.

She didn’t want to help Amber. She didn’t care what became of my mother. But Maddy knew I’d be the one cleaning up the mess because Neil would be the one injured if I didn’t, and that would weigh on me more than any of it. So she came.

Maddy watched me look over the heaps of clothing, despair swallowing me.

“I wish I could not care,” I whispered.

Maddy saw my face and dropped the bag and closed the distance between us and hugged me.

My best friend was a docking station. Same as Justin. And I cried right into her hair.

When I got it together enough to pull away from her, she put her hands on my shoulders. “I want you to know that your empathy is beautiful, Emma. I hope you never lose that. I do hope that one day you get some boundaries though.”

I laughed a little but she didn’t smile.

“You cannot keep caring about her more than you care about yourself.”

When I didn’t answer, she took a deep breath and let me go.