The woman was crying now. “Yes.”
“I’ll stay on the phone with you while you go inside.”
“What if I say the wrong thing?”
Molly’s heart was thumping so loudly she wondered if Colin and Nikki could hear it. “It’s totally okay if you say the wrong thing. We all get scared. Just keep telling the truth about what’s going on, okay? That’s all that matters.”
“Thank you…Okay, we’re inside. Thank you again.” The line went dead.
Molly stared at the screen. “Oh, my God. What if I screwed that all up?”
Nikki pumped her fist. “You were perfect.”
“She’s right, my love.” Colin caught her hand and kissed it. “You just made a damn difference, you know that?”
Molly finally swallowed the lump in her throat that had lodged itself there at the beginning of the call. “I was so scared. But I wasn’t a hundredth as scared as she was. How do you get the bravery to do that? To go?”
Nikki said, “You don’t. Until one day, you just do. Remember what the counselor said? We can help. But we can’t make them do anything.”
“I hate that,” said Colin.
Both Molly and Nikki laughed.
He frowned. “I really do. I wish we could make every woman get help, and –”
The front door opened, and he broke off.
Molly swung her chair around to face the door. They weren’t expecting anyone, and it was a tiny call center – it wasn’t set up to receive people. Not yet, at least.
The sun glared through the glass, and the woman in the doorway was just a black outline.
Molly stood. “Hello? Can we help you?”
With a thud, the woman dropped a suitcase to the floor. “What’s up?”
Molly’s heart rose back into her throat. “Lana?”
“I’ve had a crappy trip. So don’t hug me. Don’t make a big deal about it.”
Don’t hug her? Don’t make a big deal?
Yeah, right.
Lana was about to get a lesson in how Molly didn’t get bossed around anymore. Molly threw herself at her sister so hard they almost fell over together.
And Lana hugged Molly back every bit as tightly.
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About Rachael Herron
Rachael Herron is the bestselling author of the novels The Ones Who Matter Most, Splinters of Light and Pack Up the Moon (all from Penguin), the five-book Cypress Hollow series, and the memoir, A Life in Stitches. She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland. She teaches writing extension workshops at both UC Berkeley and Stanford and is a New Zealand citizen as well as an American. You can find her at RachaelHerron.com.
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