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what she had said to her mother that day before she fell across the bed in a fit of uncontrollable, manic laughter.
    “Cathy’s not here. Cathy’s dead.”
    That had been a year ago. A year of therapy. A year of healing. A year of learning to accept herself as she was, to acknowledge her true feelings and to come into her own as a grown woman. And most importantly, to forgive herself for not being perfect. Her words that day had been prophetic. The old Cathy was dead.
    She reached out and grasped Seth’s arm. “I’ll be there for every game from now on. I promise.”
    “Okay. Sure.”
    She saw a glimmer of hope in his beautiful blue eyes.
    She had disappointed him, had let him down. She would never allow that to happen again. But he didn’t know that. It was up to her to prove to him that she was completely well, that she was whole and that for the rest of his life he could count on her.
    She released her tight grip on his arm. “You know I’m staying with Lorie, but just for a little while. I plan to find a house for us soon. I’m going to start looking next week.”
    “Mom, I…I can’t come and live with you.” He stared down at the sidewalk, avoiding direct eye contact.
    “Of course you can, and you will. I’m your mother. You belong with me.”
    Don’t push so hard. Don’t demand. Ask. “I want you to live with me. Don’t you want that, too?”
    “Granddad says you’re not ready for the responsibility, that you might not ever be. He thinks I should stay with him and Nana until I leave for college in a few years.” With his head still bowed, he lifted his gaze just enough to glance at her quickly. “You can visit me anytime you want, and…and once you’re settled in and all, I could come visit you.”
    I don’t want you to visit me. I want you to live with me. “That’s what J.B. wants. What do you want, Seth?”
    That’s it, Cathy. Put your son on the spot. Make him choose between you and his grandfather.
    “Mom, I don’t want to hurt your feelings…”
    “If you want to stay with J.B. and Mona for a little while longer, then that’s what you’ll do.” Agreeing to give up her son even for a few more weeks was one of the most difficult things she’d ever done. “I’ll find a house for us…for me. And I’ll go back to work at the antique shop with Lorie. I’ll visit you, and you’ll visit me. We’ll take this one day at a time. Does that work for you?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” His lips curved into a hesitant smile. “Thanks, Mom, for…Well, for…”
    “It’s only another block into town,” she said. “Want to stop at the Ice Palace and get Cherry Cokes?”
    “Yeah, that sounds great.”
    Baby steps. One day at a time. That was how she had recovered. And it was the way she would regain her son’s trust.
     
    On her drive home from the interfaith Sunday afternoon social she had attended at St. Mary’s in Huntsville this afternoon, Lorie questioned her motives for taking part in any event even vaguely associated with religion. Her strict Baptist upbringing, her parents both fanatics of the first order, had turned her against religion as a teenager. It had seemed to her that everything that was fun was also a sin. And if there was one thing Lorie had learned about the hard way, it was sin. She had paid a heavy price for her teenage rebellion. She had lost her parents. They had never been able to forgive her for what her father had called her unforgivable sins. She had lost her innocence, her self-respect and almost her life. And she had lost the only man she had ever truly loved.
    Religion was just a word to her, and up until the past few years, it had been an ugly word. She had blamed her youthful rebellion and her gradual descent into degradation and shame on religion. But her friendship with Reverend Patsy Floyd had shown her that it was not religion but religious fanaticism that should be feared and avoided at all costs. Patsy was one of a handful of female Methodist