Chapter 11
Miller almost canceled three times on the drive over.
She’d picked up her phone at the first red light, her thumb hovering over her mother’s contact.
She mentally drafted texts. Not feeling well.
Rain check? But Nadia would hear the lie in the text the same way she’d hear it in Miller’s voice, and then she’d worry, and worrying Nadia was worse than showing up and pretending like everything was fine.
So Miller kept driving past the familiar streets of the Heights district, past the elementary school where she’d learned to ride a bike in the parking lot on weekends, past the coffee shop where she and Sienna used to spend hours pretending to study.
The neighborhood wrapped around her like an old sweater, comfortable and known.
But she didn’t feel like she fit inside it anymore.
The house looked the same as it always did: porch light on even though it wasn’t dark yet, windchimes Harper had made from old motorcycle parts clinking in the evening breeze, and the overgrown rosebush Nadia kept meaning prune.
Miller parked on the street and sat for a moment, her hands still on the wheel.
It’d been six days since the meeting in the conference room, which really meant it’d been six nights of dreams that left her tangled in her sheets with her heart pounding and skin flushed.
She’d started dreading the moment she closed her eyes, knowing what waited for her there.
Her body had become a stranger, something that knew things she didn’t and wanted things she couldn’t quite name.
Miller pressed her palms against her eyes until colors bloomed in the darkness. She just needed to get through dinner. Eat some food, make normal conversation, go home. She’d been holding herself together all week. She could hold it together for three more hours.
The front door opened before she reached the porch.
Nadia stood in the doorway, dish towel over her shoulder and a smile already forming. But the smile faltered, just slightly, as Nadia’s gaze moved over Miller’s face.
“You’re early,” she said, the same greeting as always, but her voice had softened into something gentler.
“Traffic was light.”
Nadia pulled her into a hug. Miller let herself be held, breathing in the familiar scent of rosemary and the lavender hand cream her mother had used for as long as she could remember. The embrace lasted a beat longer than usual. Two beats, then three.
“Sweetheart,” Nadia murmured against her hair.
Miller’s throat tightened. She pulled back before her composure cracked. “Is Harper in the kitchen?”
Nadia’s eyes searched her face for a moment, but she didn’t push. “Where else would she be? She’s trying a new chicken recipe. She’s been threatening me with it for weeks.”
“Threatening?”
“She found it on one of those cooking shows. You know how she gets.”
Miller managed something close to a smile and stepped inside.
The house embraced her the way it always did.
It was warm, cluttered, and alive with books precariously stacked on the coffee table and Harper’s reading glasses abandoned on top of the pile.
She walked past the wall of photos and slowed.
She saw herself at seven years old, gap-toothed and grinning; another when she was eighteen with her graduation cap askew; and another when she was at the beach with her moms, all three of them lightly sunkissed and laughing.
That girl in the photos had known who she was. But Miller didn’t know anything anymore.
“There she is.” Harper’s sing-song voice floated from the kitchen, followed by the woman herself as she wiped her hands on her jeans. Her hair had gotten more gray since retiring, and she wore it cropped short in a way that suited her. “You look like hell, kid.”
“Harper,” Nadia chastised.
“What? She does.” Harper crossed to Miller and pulled her into a solid hug, the kind that felt like being anchored to something strong and stable. “Are you sleeping?”
“Some.”
“Liar.” Harper held her at arm’s length, studying her face with the same assessing look she’d probably used on patients for thirty years. “You’ve got bags under your eyes that I could pack luggage into.”
“It’s been a busy week.”
Harper’s expression said she wasn’t buying it, but she let it go. “Well, dinner’s almost ready. I’m told the chicken is going to change our lives, but don’t get your hopes up. I said the same thing about the risotto last month.”
“The risotto was fine,” Nadia said.
“It was adequate. There’s a difference.”
They moved into the familiar rhythm of Sunday dinner: Harper back at the stove, stirring and tasting and muttering about cook times; Nadia pouring wine and setting out appetizers; Miller drifting in their wake, trying to find her footing in a routine that had always felt effortless.
“Wine?” Nadia held up the bottle.
“Please.”
She poured a generous glass, and Miller took it gratefully. The first sip went down too fast, gulping like water the wine that should be savored. Nadia noticed, Miller saw her notice, and neither of them said anything.
“How’s the big Shepry case?” Harper asked, her back still turned to them. “Last I heard, you were gearing up for depositions.”
Miller’s stomach clenched. “It’s…complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Yes, but this is more complicated than usual.”
Harper glanced over her shoulder. “Opposing counsel giving you trouble?”
The wine turned sour in Miller’s mouth. She set the glass down on a wooden coaster. “Something like that.”
Nadia’s hand found her elbow, a light but brief touch. “We don’t have to talk about work.”
“No, it’s—” Miller shook her head. “It’s fine, just a lot going on.”
They moved to the dining room when the chicken was ready.
Harper served it with the ceremonial pride she always brought to new recipes, and Miller made the appropriate noises of appreciation as food was piled onto her plate.
On the menu this week was roasted chicken, herb-crusted potatoes, and green beans with lemon juice and toasted almonds.
It was a meal that would normally make her mouth water. She pushed a potato across her place and cut a piece of chicken into smaller pieces, then smaller still.
“Not hungry?” Nadia asked, her voice pointedly neutral.
“I had a late lunch.”
Another lie. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Nothing stayed down. Her body felt entirely foreign and unreliable to her, keeping secrets she hadn’t even known herself.
The conversation flowed around her. Harper was talking about the ‘72 Honda motorcycle she was restoring, some problem with the carburetor that Miller should’ve been able to follow but couldn’t. Miller nodded when it seemed appropriate, made sounds of interest, but contributed nothing.
Gray-blue eyes, the scent of expensive perfume, the moment before—
“Miller blinked hard and stared at her plate.
“Miller.”
She looked up to see both of her moms watching her. She had no idea what question she’d failed to answer.
“Sorry, what?”
Harper set down her fork. “Okay, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired.”
“You’ve said that. Three times now, actually.” Harper’s voice was steady, but her eyes were sharp, missing nothing. “And you’ve eaten maybe four bites of my life-changing chicken, which is honestly a personal insult, but more importantly, you’re sitting there like you’re a thousand miles away.”
“I’m fine…”
“You’re not. You haven’t been fine since you walked in the door. I can see it written all over you, sweetheart.”
Miller’s hands had started to shake, so she flattened them on the table. “It’s just work. The case is intense, and I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Because of the case?” Nadia asked.
“Yes.”
“The work itself or…”
Miller went very still. The silence stretched between them. Harper was watching her with an expression Miller didn’t recognize and couldn’t read. Nadia waited, patient as always, the question hanging in the air.
“It’s complicated,” Miller finally said.
“So you’ve mentioned.” Nadia reached over and covered Miller’s hand with her own. “We have time. Harper’s food will keep.”
“It really won’t,” Harper muttered, but she nudged her plate aside anyway.
Miller stared at their joined hands. Her mother’s skin was soft and lined with age, the same hands that had held her through every nightmare and heartbreak and triumph of her life. She’d never hidden anything from these women. She’d never needed to.
She had no idea how to start telling them this, though. She didn’t even know how to tell it to herself.
“Let’s clean up,” Nadia said, as if sensing Miller wasn’t ready. “We can talk in the kitchen.”
The kitchen had always been where the real conversations happened.
Something about the rhythm of cleaning and the excuse of performing a task made it easier to speak openly.
Miller found herself at the sink, hands submerged in the soapy water, and Nadia drying the cleaned dishes beside her.
Harper had retreated to the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed.
Miller could feel the warmth of her gaze on her back as she washed a plate, then another.
The hot water stung her hands, and she welcomed it.
It was something else to feel that wasn’t the churning in her chest.
“There’s someone,” she said, and her voice came out strange, too high-pitched and thin.
Nadia kept drying, not missing a beat. “Someone at work?”
“Connected to work. Not… It’s complicated.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it is.” Miller scrubbed at a spot that was already clean. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Try.”
The plate was going to crack if she kept scrubbing it. Miller set it in the rack and reached for another, but her hands were shaking too hard. She braced them on the edge of the sink instead, staring down at the soap suds in the water.
“I’ve been having dreams,” she said.
“What kind of dreams?”
Miller’s face went hot. “The kind you don’t talk about with your mothers.”