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Ainsley stood as Mrs. Langostine approached the table.

“Hello, Ainsley,” Mrs. Langostine said. Ainsley could tell the woman was nervous.

“Hi, Mrs. Langostine,” Ainsley greeted. “It’s…”

She stopped herself. What was she supposed to say? It’s nice to see you again? That seemed ridiculous under the circumstances.

“Please, sit down,” she said instead.

“Thank you,” the older woman said, pulling out the one other chair at the table and sitting. “I know you must be busy so, really, thank you for seeing me.”

“My…”

Ainsley stopped herself again; the ingrained habits of polite society once more almost tripping her up. My pleasure certainly didn’t seem appropriate. Quite frankly, it wasn’t Ainsley’s pleasure. She’d rather be doing almost anything else than sitting here with Casey’s mother because she thought she had closed the Casey chapter of her life. It was Casey who had decided to reopen it—rather intrusively.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

Mrs. Langostine looked down at her hands for a few moments before bringing her eyes up to meet Ainsley’s.

“As a mother, I wanted to see you to apologize for my daughter,” she said. She sighed. “Casey…has always been a bit dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” Ainsley couldn

’t help saying. “She broke into my house, Mrs. Langostine! She tried to run my girlfriend over with her car!”

“I know,” Casey’s mother said quickly. “And believe me, I am not trying to make excuses for her or even ask you to take pity on her. What she did was reprehensible.”

She went on. Over the next several minutes, Ainsley learned that Casey’s parents suspected that their daughter was not doing well. Casey’s behavior during phone calls to them over the past several months had become increasingly erratic and even her Facebook posts were showing troubling signs.

Ainsley would have had no idea about those. She had blocked Casey on all her social media accounts as soon as they had broken up.

“Please understand,” Mrs. Langostine said, “that Stephen and I do not blame you at all, but losing you hit her hard. We just didn’t realize how hard it had been for her. Of course, it doesn’t help that we’re all the way across the country in Florida…”

“Mrs. Langostine,” Ainsley interrupted, “I can appreciate you coming here to apologize. But I will not allow anyone, no matter the reason, to disrupt my life or put me or anyone I love in danger. Now, I’m sorry Casey took our break-up particularly hard but, number one, she brought it upon herself and, number two, it still doesn’t excuse what she did. I repeat: She broke into my home! And she also tried to run over my girlfriend!”

She was starting to get angry. She made herself close her eyes and take a deep breath to re-center herself.

“If you’re asking me to tell the police to drop all the charges—”

“No,” Mrs. Langostine interrupted. “That’s not why I’m here.” She swallowed. “Sometimes parents have to make the decision that their child needs to suffer harsh consequences. It will be difficult—for her and for us—but Casey needs to go through this. If she got off scot-free what will that teach her in the end? As much as we love our daughter, we are also both extremely angry with her. I know this may sound incredibly old-fashioned to a young person like you but she’s brought us shame. A child is a reflection of her parents and so tell me, what does Casey’s behavior say about me and Stephen?”

Ainsley didn’t know how to answer that. Mrs. Langostine was right, it did seem incredibly old-fashioned. But then again, Ainsley wasn’t a parent yet and was thus unaware of what it must be like for this woman whose daughter was now in jail.

“I don’t think it’s fair to blame yourselves for everything one of your children do,” she told her companion, feeling unqualified to even say that.

The older woman smiled wanly. She even chuckled a bit.

“Just wait,” Mrs. Langostine said. “One day you’ll have kids and you’ll understand. In any case, Ainsley, Stephen and I are hoping that if Casey ends up in prison, even for a short time, it will make her finally get over you while also realizing that actions have consequences. I only wanted to see you to apologize formally, that’s all.”

Ainsley felt sorry for the woman sitting across from her. This mother who woke up one morning a few days ago to discover her daughter was in jail and then made the choice that jail was the best place for her.

“Thank you for apologizing,” Ainsley said. “It does help.”

Mrs. Langostine gave another wan smile.

“For what it’s worth,” she began, “when I saw Casey just now, she seems to understand just how much trouble she’s in and she seems remorseful. She’s ashamed of herself and grateful that she didn’t hurt your friend with her car. I know you probably don’t want to believe that, which is fine. But she…hopes you both can forgive her.”

Ainsley wanted to believe that forgiveness was possible, but this was real life, not a rom-com. She was still angry and she wasn’t going to be able to simply shrug that off just because her ex-girlfriend had trouble letting go of her. She couldn’t speak for Rachel, of course, but speaking for herself, forgiveness would take time and she told Mrs. Langostine so.