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“I guess it’s the curse of the oldest child.” She knelt in front of me and took my hands in one of hers, brushing my hair away from my face with the other. “I’m sayin’ the whole world is not your responsibility. You can let the rest of us carry it sometimes.”

“I know that.”

But why did it feel like the opposite was true? She was right though. I had been walking around with my fists up for a long time. My three visits to the holding cell at the sheriff’s station were proof of that, and maybe the look of exhaustion I’d seen on Theo’s face that day during my last “time out” was too.

Doubt clouded my mom’s eyes. I didn’t see pity or anger. All I saw was that she loved me. “Do you though?”

“Yes. I… I do.”

“Sometimes, I wonder,” she said, shaking her head. “Now, I understand you’re mad, and I get why, but don’t I deserve for you to trust my choices?”

“Mom, of course you do, but not Red Graves.”

“Well, fortunately for me, you do not get a say in who I spend my time with.”

“I just don’t understand. He’s the exact opposite of you. He’s everything we don’t believe in. So what? All of a sudden, you don’t care about kindness and?—”

“Devil, haven’t I always cared about that? Just ’cause you can’t see what I see, that means I’m supposed to give up on a person? I should just walk away from what my heart’s tellin’ me ’cause you say so?”

“Your heart?”

“Yes, Devona, my heart. I am the matriarch of this family. I’m a grown-ass woman. You may think the world will stop spinnin’ if you aren’t there to turn it, but it’s just not true. I can make my own decisions and come to my own conclusions. I don’t need you to do it for me. I didn’t ask you to, and I don’t want you to. Is that understood?”

“But, Mom?—”

“But nothin’. This is all I’ll say on the matter. The subject is closed. You don’t have to like it or try to understand it if you choose not to.”

Breathing deeply, recognizing the finality in her tone, I gave up. It was rare for her to shut me down like this, but I knew when she’d made up her mind. For some mysterious reason, she had decided to dig her heels in over Red freaking Graves.

I didn’t want to say something I’d really regret, so I closed my eyes and sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now check your texts. I want you to click the link I sent and have a look around the website it leads to. You look at it, and then you tell me there isn’t more to that man. There has to be good in Red somewhere for him to have created the beauty he did.”

Huh? What good had Red Graves created?

“And I wanna know more. Maybe I’m wrong, and he is who you think he is, but that’s my problem to discover. Not yours.”

She stood and left my room quietly, and I felt completely… empty.

If she didn’t want me fighting for her, if she thought I had been immature when all I’d ever wanted to do was advocate for people who couldn’t do it for themselves, then what the hell had I been doing with my life?

But since when had I decided she needed my help with anything? She didn’t. She was the strongest person I’d ever known.

And as I thought about what she said, it occurred to me that I remembered the exact moment I had vowed to always help and care for her, above and beyond what any child should have to do for their parent that they loved.

I remembered the rough house we’d lived in in New Mexico, the one without air conditioning or a heater that could be counted on to work all winter. It didn’t have a lot of things, and one day, the washing machine broke down. When I got off the school bus in second grade, I ran home to show my mom the picture I’d painted in art class, and I found her out back, sweating and trying to wash five peoples’ clothes in a bucket. The water was dirty and barely soapy, and there were articles of clothing draped over every surface they could be draped, set out to dry in the hot desert sun.

She had been at her wit’s end that day, and when I asked why she didn’t just go get a new washer because I had been too young to understand the complexities of adult financial responsibilities, she began to cry, and I thought, When it’s up to me, you’ll never cry again.

Apparently, the sentiment had translated to my adult life.

I’d been prancing around, thinking I had been doing all this good in the world, thinking everyone needed me to sort out their shit for them, to protect them and fight their battles, but did they all agree with my own mother? Was I a nuisance who couldn’t keep her nose out of other people’s business? Was I doing more harm than good?

What in the fuck was I even doing at all?

Falling back on the bed, I pressed up on my toes, lifting my butt to reach my phone in my back pocket. I needed to talk to Theo. He’d back me up. He’d tell me everything I’d been working for wasn’t a waste.

Wouldn’t he?