Chapter Nine
The next day, I didn’t hang around after last period study hall. I gave Justin and Paxon a quick wave, grabbed my bag, and headed straight for the parking lot.
My phone buzzed as I walked, and when I checked it, I found a couple of messages from the guys—pleasant goodbyes and reminders that they were there if I needed anything. They knew I was going to see my mother and that those visits could unravel fast.
The drive to Higginham Memorial was quiet, my music playing low. The sky was overcast again, the clouds swollen but not quite ready to break.
When I pulled into the hospital lot, I sat for a minute before getting out.
I’d been coming here for months, but it was still hard to walk through those doors and face the woman who had put me in the hospital.
People thought I was crazy for being willing to help my abuser.
Sometimes I felt the weight of those words.
Maybe I was crazy just like Lindie.
Inside, the air always smelled faintly sterile, way too clean, with lemon disinfectant underneath. I signed in at the front desk, nodded to the nurse who knew me by name now, and made my way up to Lindie’s room.
Dr. Livingston was standing outside the room, looking down at a clipboard. She wore her usual patient expression.
“Cadence, good to see you again,” she said in her smooth and cheerful voice.
“You too,” I said. “How’s she doing today?”
“Better,” the doctor said. “She’s been responding well to the medication and hasn’t had any episodes in the last month. I think we finally found what works for her. She’s well balanced now.”
I tried to let that sink in. Balanced. It was a word that felt impossible when I thought of my mother.
Dr. Livingston smiled at me, the corners of her light eyes crinkling. “She’s been looking forward to your visit. She’s calmer when she knows you’re coming.”
I blinked. That was new.
“She’s...calmer?” I asked, making sure I didn’t mishear her.
The doctor nodded. “She’s aware now. More self-reflective. It’s a good sign, Cadence. A very good sign.”
I nodded slowly. “And when...” I tripped over the idea. “When do you think she might be released?”
Dr. Livingston hesitated, reading my face. “If her progress continues, possibly in the next few weeks. She will be set up with our outpatient care department, and I’ll continue to monitor her closely.”
My heart gave a small, uncertain twist. “That soon?”
“It’s a good thing,” she said gently.
I didn’t know how to explain that good didn’t feel like the right word. I wasn’t ready. Not for her to be out in the world again. Not for the possibility of her being near me without the doctors nearby.
But I only nodded in response because that was easier than screaming out my fears to Dr. Livingston.
Before leaving me at the door, the doctor added, “I finally got to meet your father the other day. He’s been stopping by every now and again. He keeps his visits brief, but I think they’ve helped your mother. She’s more receptive now.”
My stomach tightened. “He shouldn’t be visiting her.”
Dr. Livingston tilted her head. “You don’t want him to?”
“No. It’s just.... He...doesn’t get to decide anything about her anymore. Or me.”
There was no edge in her tone when she said, “Noted. I can’t stop the visits, but he has no access to her records or anything. Whatever he knows, it’s what Lindie decides to share.”
Which wouldn’t be anything at all.
Dr. Livingston excused herself, and I stepped into the room.
Lindie sat in the chair by the window, a blanket over her lap. Her dark hair had been cut since my last visit, a neat bob framing her face. She looked older but not fragile. Healthy even, which wasn’t a look she’d had since the summer.
She looked up when she saw me. “You cut your hair,” she said first. Her voice was low, still husky, but softer.
“Just trimmed it,” I said. “You did the same.”
For a moment, she simply looked at me. I couldn’t read her expression, not that I ever could, but for the first time in a long while, there was no anger in her eyes. No sharpness. Only quiet.
“You’re earlier than usual,” she said.
“Light traffic,” I mumbled, not wanting to get into the fact that avoiding Paxon meant me practically running to my car.
A small nod. “I’ve been doing better. The doctor says I’m doing well.”
“She told me,” I said carefully.
There was a pause. “You don’t look happy about it.”
I swallowed, my heart rate spiking. I was terrified of setting her off even if the doctor and the whole world thought she was doing better. “I am happy. I just wasn’t expecting it to be so soon.”
She pressed her lips together, a small tremor passing through her fingers. For a second, I thought she might snap back, that familiar, dangerous shift I used to feel before everything went wrong.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she looked down at her hands, fiddling with the edge of the blanket like she couldn’t stand to look at me. When she spoke, her voice was low, rough. “I know what I did. To you.”
My stomach tightened.
She went on, steady but detached, like she was reciting something she’d rehearsed in therapy. “The things I said. The things I did. I understand better now. I didn’t want to, but I do. And I’m not proud of it.”
The words landed like something heavy dropped on my chest.
I wanted to believe her. Part of me even did.
But the memory of too many nights of shouted words, thrown items and bruises she never cared about was hard to erase just because her tone had changed.
It didn’t undo the hours I’d spent locked in the music room, composing songs for her to sell.
Or the mornings I’d had to hide marks with long sleeves before going to school and pretending everything was fine.
It didn’t erase the fake smiles she used in public—the ones that made people think she was kind, loving, and normal. When she’d paint me as the problem child and she was the angel who loved me still.
I stared at her, the words I wanted to say caught in my throat, burning with hatred and frustration and fear.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked finally.
She looked up then, her dark eyes clearer than I’d ever seen them.
“Because I can’t change it,” she said simply.
She swallowed hard. “When I lost your little brother, I broke. Something inside of me completely snapped, and I’ve never been the same since.
I wasn’t mother of the year even before then.
I know that. But afterwards....” She blew out a small breath.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I can’t change it.
What happened has already happened. And I don’t expect you to forgive me for it either.
That’s a cruel expectation. But you deserve to hear it from me.
Not a doctor or anyone else. From me. I know what I did and I know what I did was wrong. ”
There was no gentleness in her voice. No pleading. Just an acknowledgement, raw and strangely hollow.
The silence that followed was almost unbearable. The air was heavy, like even the walls were holding their breath.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered.
“There’s nothing to say,” she replied, her gaze flickering toward the window. “I just needed to say it.”
That was it. No hug. No apology shaped into comfort. Just an admission dropped between us like a stone, deep enough to ripple but not enough to heal.
For the first time, she seemed human. Not the monster I remembered, not the mother I needed, just a broken person staring at the wreckage she finally realized she made.
I didn’t know if that made it better or worse.
I stayed in the room a little longer after she turned toward the window, her focus already drifting away. These were how our visits had been until today. Silent, practically two strangers just taking up space in the same room. The silence pressed against me until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I’ll come again soon,” I said, even though I knew she wasn’t going to respond. She never did.
This time, she did give a faint nod, something she hadn’t done before.
I stepped out quickly, closing the door behind me, and started down the hall. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, too bright, too white. My chest ached like I’d been holding my breath for hours.
Instead of heading for the exit, I followed the signs to the cafeteria. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed to sit somewhere that wasn’t her room.
The cafeteria was half-empty. A few nurses lingered at the back, talking over coffee. The smell of soup and something lemony filled the air. I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler, paid for it and a small bag of chips, and sat at one of the tables near the massive floor to ceiling windows.
Rain had started outside, thin and silvery, sliding down the glass in crooked lines. I twisted the cap on the bottle and took a long drink.
Lindie said she wasn’t proud. She said she remembered.
But remembering wasn’t fixing.
And her acknowledgement didn’t erase the damage.
“Cadence?” a familiar voice called out, warm and patient. “You look like you’re thinking too hard. Dangerous habit for a teenager.”
I blinked, startled, and turned toward the sound.
Dr. George Stokes, Paxon’s dad, stood beside my table, a coffee in one hand and a stack of files under his arm. His dark grey hair was slightly tousled, and his tie looked like it had been knotted in the dark.
He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Paxon’s eyes. I was looking at Paxon’s eyes when he’ll be older. “Mind if I sit or are you about to diagnose me for bad posture?”
Despite myself, I laughed. “You can sit.”
He took the seat across from me, setting down his coffee. “Good, I was worried I’d have to eat in my office again. Don’t tell anyone, but the cafeteria food’s better company than most of my coworkers.”
“That’s a low bar,” I said, the corners of my mouth twitching.
He chuckled softly. “You’d be surprised. You’d think mental health professionals would know how to manage stress, but you give one a broken printer and it’s chaos.”
That earned him a real smile from me. It was small, but at least it finally felt genuine.
“There it is,” he said, pointing at me. “That’s what I was aiming for. I swear, my son’s friends all walk around like the world’s about to end half the time.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it is.”
George pretended to think about it. “If it is, I hope it waits until after dinner. I’ve already thawed chicken.”
The loud laugh that escaped me surprised even myself.
After a moment, his teasing stopped, replaced by that calm, doctorly kind of patience. “You visiting your mom today?” he asked gently.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s different.”
He waited, the silence encouraging rather than pressing.
“She’s aware now. Said she’s finally able to grasp what she did.”
“That’s good,” he said softly, nodding. “Awareness doesn’t fix things, but it’s the first step toward trying. I imagine that’s hard for you, though.”
I swallowed. “I don’t know what to do with it. She’s getting better, and that’s supposed to be good, but...”
“But it doesn’t erase what she did,” he finished for me.
I nodded, relieved not to have to say it.
He took a slow sip of coffee, thinking. “You don’t have to forgive her to move forward,” he said after a moment. “Forgiveness and healing aren’t the same thing. Sometimes, healing is just...choosing not to let the past dictate every tomorrow.”
His words settled deep inside me, hitting every thought I had and giving them comfort. He was right. I couldn’t forgive. She could promise me the world and the moon and the stars and the universe, and I still wouldn’t be able to forgive her.
And Lindie understood that as well, which is why she didn’t ask for it.
I glanced out the window again. “You always know what to say, don’t you?”
He smiled, a little wistful. “It’s my job to sound wise. My son, however, thinks it’s just because I’m old.”
I laughed, and for a moment, the ache in my chest loosened.
George glanced at his watch, then stood, gathering his files. “I should get back to the land of outpatients and bad coffee. You take care of yourself, Cadence. And eat something that isn’t water and chips.”
“I’ll try,” I said, giving him a small smile.
He gave me a warm smile of his own. “Good girl.” Then he paused, adding with a half-smile. “And tell Paxon I’m still waiting for him to call me about that essay. He’s not getting out of it just because I’m his dad. Maybe coming from you, it’ll light a fire under his ass.”
“I’ll let him know,” I said, amused.
“Perfect.” He was already walking away. “If he complains, tell him I can be much scarier than I have been. I’ll give that boy damn nightmares if I have to.”
I watched him go, his easy stride disappearing through the cafeteria doors. Outside, the rain kept falling, steady and unhurried. I stayed where I was, not ready to go out into the cold rain without an umbrella.