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“Oh my God!”
“It gets even better.” Pressure built in Willow’s chest, and for a moment, she thought the tears would erupt again. Instead, the anxiety turned to ice. She was ice. She had to be frozen to get through this.
“AJ’s mother has died, leaving him orphaned. Maggie and Tom are raising him.”
Genevieve’s mouth gaped. “Why, they’re older than I am. How can they possibly keep up with a toddler? They have to have help.”
“Yes. They have a nanny.”
“Still, that can’t be easy.”
“No, it can’t. I imagine that’s partly why Maggie asked me to move to Texas with the kids. To incentivize the process, they bought us a house.”
“They what?” Genevieve shouted.
Willow relayed the details of the proposition Maggie had presented. Her mother’s back got stiffer with every sentence,her eyes angrier. Willow tried to put some calm into her voice as she finished. “Don’t worry, Mom. I told her no. Like I said earlier. We want to stay here in Lake in the Clouds. Maggie didn’t like it. She argued that Drew and Emma need to know their brother.”
Genevieve gasped audibly. “Their brother. Oh my God. I hadn’t made that connection. What happened to the mother?”
“She had an aneurysm. She was driving. It happened very fast.”
“Oh my God.” Genevieve lifted her hand to her mouth. “Was the boy with her? Was it just like with Andy? That poor child!”
“No. She’d dropped her son off at daycare before it happened.”
“Thank God.” Genevieve took a long sip of her drink. “I cannot believe Maggie. She bought you a house? Why, the nerve of her. The next time I talk to her, I’ll give her a piece of my mind.”
Now for the fun part. Willow found she could use a little of her mother’s liquid courage. “Mind if I have a glass of your bourbon, Mom?”
Genevieve waved her to go ahead. In the time it took Willow to fix her drink, her mother didn’t appear to have moved so much as an eyelash. Take that back. Half of her drink was gone. She said, “Willow, why do I feel you still have a big old heavy shoe to drop?”
Willow swirled her bourbon. “You always did have excellent instincts.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Willow took a long sip of her drink. It was good whiskey, but Willow wasn’t accustomed to drinking liquor straight.It burned her throat. “Maggie called me this morning. Tom had a stroke.”
“Oh no. How bad is it?”
“It’s bad.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Poor Tom. I’ll have to—” She broke off abruptly and shot Willow a look sharp enough to cut glass. “Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no. Willow, tell me she did not ask you to take care of that child.”
Willow answered by taking another sip of her drink. Another long sip. She thought she could probably get used to it.
“Willow!”
The tears were threatening again. “What was I supposed to say, Mom? Maggie has a crisis on her hands. Her husband may well die. She needs help so she turned to family.”
“That’s a tenuous family connection at best. What about the mother’s family? Surely she had someone.”
“Maggie said there is no one. She’s in a bind, Mom. She has no one else to turn to for help.”
“So, call Child Protective Services,” Genevieve fired back. “That’s their job.”
“C’mon, Mom. You’ve heard Tess’s stories about her time in the foster care system.”
“Oh, all right. Not CPS. But surely there’s someone—”
