Chapter 2
Portland, Oregon.
The fluorescent lights of The Greasy Skillet hummed with a low-frequency vibration that irritated Glenna more than she ever wanted to admit.
It was a rhythmic, persistent throb that kept time with the kitchen’s industrial dishwasher and the heavy rain that had been lashing against the windowpanes since the diner opened at five in the morning.
Glenna wiped down the counter for the tenth time in an hour, her movements mechanical and precise.
If she kept moving, she didn’t have to think.
If she kept her hands busy, she could pretend the hollow ache in her chest was just hunger or exhaustion rather than the soul-deep agony of being separated from her child.
The rag moved in tight circles over the laminate surface, chasing away a sticky ring of maple syrup left by a hurried commuter.
She almost didn’t recognize her reflection in the stainless steel backsplash.
When had she become so skinny, and who did those sunken, dark-circled eyes and hair that had lost its luster, pulled back into a severe, utilitarian bun belong to?
At twenty-eight, her whole body ached like she was eighty, and her heart had forgotten what it was not to hurt with every beat.
The weight of the last two years had pressed the life out of her, leaving behind a shell of who she used to be.
Yet even as she considered the trauma of her life, fueled by caffeine and a desperate, singular focus, she was determined to fix everything.
Kelsey was counting on her to make everything right.
Find a way to get her back.
There has to be a way to fix this.
“Glenna! Table four is complaining about their hash browns again. Move it!” Her boss, Bernie, a man whose personality was as sour as the milk he forgot to rotate in the walk-in, yelled.
He was a petty tyrant who took visible pleasure in the fact that he held Glenna’s livelihood in his grease-stained hands.
He knew she couldn’t quit. He knew she had no references, no safety net, and a legal battle that required a steady paycheck to even maintain the illusion of stability.
“On it, Bernie,” She didn’t dare let the resentment flare. Anger was a luxury she couldn’t afford. It took too much energy, and she needed every ounce of her strength just to make it to the end of her double shift.
She picked up the tray, her feet aching in her cheap, worn-out sneakers.
Every step was a reminder of the physical cost of her current existence.
When her car had been towed six months ago—the same car she and Kelsey had been sleeping in when the police finally caught up to them—she’d lost more than just transportation.
She’d lost her only shelter, her sense of privacy, and the last of her dignity.
Now, she lived in a transitional housing unit that smelled of body odor, industrial bleach, and a questionable smoky scent she didn’t want to know the origin of, a forty-five-minute bus ride away from the diner.
She delivered the plate to table four, offering a practiced, hollow smile as she apologized for the kitchen’s mistake. The customer didn’t even look at her, just grumbled something about “good help being hard to find.”
What a dick.
She didn’t react. She was invisible to them. She was just a uniform, a vessel for coffee and eggs. To the state of Oregon, she was a case number. To the Department of Human Services, she was a “marginalized parent with insufficient housing and income.” To the world, she was a failure.
But to Kelsey, she was Mommy. Or she had been, until they’d taken her daughter from her.
She reached into the pocket of her apron and felt the small, rectangular shape of a photograph she kept tucked inside a plastic sleeve.
She didn’t take it out—Bernie would write her up for “loitering on the clock”—but she let her thumb graze the edge of it.
It was a picture of Kelsey on her fifth birthday.
Her daughter was a miniature version of Dwight, with the same stubborn tilt to her chin and a smile that could light up the gloomiest Portland afternoon.
Dee.
Just thinking his name brought a fresh wave of bitterness.
She’d loved him with everything she was, and for a while, she’d believed the fairy tale.
He was her hero, the Marine Raider who promised her the world before deploying for the final time.
But because they hadn’t been married—because they were “waiting for the right time”—the military had slammed every door in her face the moment he’d been killed.
There was no survivor’s pension. No death benefit.
No military family support. Dwight had listed his aunt as his next of kin on his paperwork, a woman who lived in a haze of prescription meds and hadn’t answered a single one of Glenna’s letters.
To the Marine Corps, Glenna and Kelsey didn’t exist. They were just a footnote in a life that ended in a dusty valley on the other side of the world.
She’d spent the first year after his death trying to fight the bureaucracy, but grief and poverty were a lethal combination. Without his income, the apartment was gone. Then the savings. Then the phone. Then the hope.
I didn’t fail her because I didn’t love her.
Her grip tightened on the wet rag as she moved back to the prep station.
I failed her because I was alone.
The memories of that night eighteen months ago still haunted her nightmares.
The flashing blue lights of the patrol car.
The cold rain. The way Kelsey had screamed and clung to her neck as the social worker, a woman named Mrs. Gable who looked like she’d had a heart transplant from a glacier, pried her away.
“It’s for the best, Ms. Harper,” Mrs. Gable had said, her voice dripping with a condescending pity that was worse than outright cruelty. “You can’t provide a child with a safe environment in a 2004 Honda Civic. We’ll get you some resources, and you can work toward reunification.”
Reunification. It was a beautiful, lying word.
It implied a path, a bridge to getting her daughter back.
In reality, it was a mountain built of red tape and moving goalposts that she could never hope to conquer.
First, she needed a job. Then permanent housing—not a shelter, not a rooming house, but a multi-bedroom apartment she could never hope to afford on waitressing tips.
Then she needed to prove her “psychological stability,” as if being kept from your child wouldn’t drive anyone to the brink of madness.
Then six months ago, after she’d shown up at Kelsey’s foster home—not to take her, just to see her, to give her a stuffed rabbit for her birthday—the foster parents had filed for a restraining order.
They’d called her “erratic” and “threatening.” The state had sided with them.
For the last six months, Glenna hadn’t heard her daughter’s voice.
She hadn’t seen her face except in that smuggled photograph.
Every court date was a new exercise in humiliation, a new reason why she wasn’t “ready” yet.
“Glenna! Refills on six!”
She jarred herself out of the spiral and grabbed the coffee carafe.
The diner was filling up for the lunch rush, the air growing thick with the smell of frying onions and wet wool coats.
She moved through the aisles, trying to focus on the job, on not spilling coffee on customers, and avoiding the handsy dude on table ten who kept trying to grab her ass.
She was drowning. She could feel the water closing over her head.
Her latest court-appointed attorney had looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, and had told her last week that the foster parents were moving toward permanent adoption.
They were a “stable, two-parent household with significant resources.” Compared to Glenna, they were the American Dream.
I’ll die first.
I’ll die before I let them take her forever.
But how did you fight the state? How did you fight a system designed to favor the wealthy and the stable? She was a waitress in a dead-end diner with forty-two dollars in her bank account and a heart that felt like it had been put through a meat grinder.
The bustle of the lunch rush reached a crescendo. Orders flew, voices rose, and more than one customer took their frustrations out on Glenna’s slow service. She took it all. She apologized, she nodded, she swallowed her pride until her throat ached, all while repeating in her head.
Don’t get fired.
Don’t lose this job.
Kelsey needs me.
Don’t get fired.
Don’t lose this job.
Kelsey needs me.
Around two o’clock, the crowd began to thin. Bernie was in the back, probably sneaking a cigarette or berating the dishwasher. Glenna leaned against the beverage station, her legs trembling with fatigue. She reached into her pocket to pull out a crumpled tissue, and her fingers brushed her phone.
A prepaid burner was the only thing she could afford to keep active.
She only gave the number to her lawyer and the DHS office, hoping every time it vibrated that it was news.
Reliable news. She checked the screen, but there were no missed calls or texts.
Just the cracked screen and a notification that her battery was on nineteen percent.
She felt a sob threatening deep in her chest. It was a physical pressure, a build-up of months of suppressed emotion, and she swallowed it down as she looked at the clock.
Three more hours.
Just three more hours, and then she could walk to the bus stop, go back to her cramped room, and cry until she fell into a fitful sleep.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated in her hand.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through her. She fumbled with the device, her heart leaping into her throat.
Maybe it was her lawyer. Maybe the judge had stayed the adoption proceedings.
She looked at the screen and blinked. The number was long, way too long to be her lawyer’s office.
Where is +39...?