But I don’t concern myself with their opinions. Instead, I think of my mother, who, after years of protecting me, got taken out by the asshole she married. The one who got off on knocking her around. I think of her, hooked up to tubes and wires after that plane crash, telling me she never should have left Ruby Creek. A place I’d never heard of. Telling me she should have stuck around and trained racehorses. A part of her life I’ve never known. Then she dropped a life-altering bomb on me. And then she died. He died, too, but he took my mom with him.
