"And your mom?" Sabrina's voice drifted from the window seat, quiet and curious.
"Diana Angelo. She tried, for a while. Worked double shifts at a diner, dated a string of men who were all somehow worse than the last. When Iris was born, she stuck around long enough to make sure someone was there to take care of her." I felt my jaw tighten. "Then she met a guy in California and decided she'd rather be there than here. Sent me a text two months ago telling me she'd gone. Took three hundred bucks from the emergency fund on her way out."
The room went quiet again. Not the uncomfortable kind of quiet, but the kind that comes when people are processing something heavy and don't want to fill the space with meaningless words.
Harlow's grip on my hand tightened. Vivienne reached over and rested her palm on my knee, a gesture so unexpectedly gentle that I almost flinched. Cassidy made a sound low in her throat, something that might have been anger or sympathy or both.
