I nodded, remembering that unconditional love I felt for my mother when I was a child. Day by day as the years passed my mother had chipped away at that love until I was only clinging to the idea of it.

“She would lock me in my room for hours when she had a guy over.” Maia’s haunted eyes made me reach for her hand and hold on tight. “I’d have to sit in there listening to them having sex, and then he’d leave and Maryanne would get high or drunk and forget about me. I’d need the toilet or I was hungry and I’d bang on my door, but she was out of it and I’d be stuck in there.” Tears slipped down her cheeks, and my own eyes stung in answer to them. “Afterward I wouldn’t talk to her because I was hurt, and she’d feel really bad and she’d take me out for lunch and buy me something. She’d sit with me the whole day making me laugh, and I’d start loving her all over again.” Maia brushed impatiently at her tears. “But she’d just repeat it.”

“Oh, Maia.” I squeezed her hand, not knowing what to say because I knew there were no words to soothe this kind of wound.

“She messed around with these really dodgy guys, Grace. They treated her badly. They spoke to her like she was nothing, and sometimes they hit her. For years she protected me from that. That’s why she’d lock me in my room, so they either didn’t know about me or they couldn’t get to me. But I heard it all. Heard her crying out in pain sometimes…” She grew silent in reflection.

I stared at her, willing the rising anger inside of me down.

I wanted to punish her mother for doing this to her.

I closed my eyes, more tears falling as I realized Maia would carry this pain for the rest of her life.

She would always, always feel like an unloved, abandoned child whenever she thought of her mother.

“Grace.” Maia’s grip on my hand tightened, and I opened my eyes. More tears sprang to her eyes when she saw how upset I was, and this little sob burst out between her lips. “Grace.”

In answer I got up and pulled her off the stool and into my arms, and I held her while she cried, her tears soaking my bathrobe.

Eventually she pulled away from me and wiped at her cheeks. She looked at the floor, her dark eyelashes glistening. Heaving a shaky sigh, she shook her head. “I didn’t tell you to upset you. I was trying to tell you why you should be with Dad.”

I touched her chin, gently lifting it so I could see her eyes. “Tell me.”

The sudden determination in her gaze reminded me so much of Logan. “I didn’t just decide to leave Maryanne. She stopped protecting me. She stopped pretending to love me. That guy… the junkie that was in the flat with her.”

Fear knotted my stomach. “Yes?”

“That’s her boyfriend Dom. He’s been her boyfriend for a while now. He… He tried to touch me when Maryanne was out of it.”

I jerked away, my rage hot in my blood, my skin, my nerves —

“He didn’t,” Maia hurried to assure me. “I didn’t let him. But Maryanne didn’t believe me when I told her. That was it for me. I was done pretending that we loved each other. I was done pretending I didn’t hate her for what she was doing. I was done pretending I wasn’t ashamed of her.” Her eyes blazed with her anger and guilt.

We were mirror images.

Still learning to deal with the tangle of emotions and damage created by our parents.

I knew then I would die before this girl ever thought I didn’t love her.

“When Maryanne mentioned Logan was my dad, I took the newspaper article. I kept it. The day after she slapped me for telling her Dom tried to touch me, I started looking for Dad. I got on the computer at school and Googled him. There was an article about him and the nightclub. I went there and told some janitor guy I was a family member and someone had passed away and I needed to find Dad. He gave me Dad’s address.”

I raised an eyebrow at that information. “Did you tell your dad?”

She smirked. “Yeah. I mean, he’s glad I found him, but the guy shouldn’t be randomly handing his address out. Dad had words with him.”

“I imagine he did.”

“I didn’t know what to expect with Dad. I just hoped it would be better than what I had with my mum. I was scared there, Grace. I was really scared.”

“I know,” I whispered, hating that she’d gone through that.

“I’m not anymore.” She stepped toward me, light suddenly melting away the dark in her eyes. “Dad makes me feel safe. I feel like we’ve been with each other since the beginning, and I never thought that would happen. It’s like a miracle.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “It’s sounds really cheesy.”

I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t.”

“You’re a huge part of that. You’ve given me a home too.”

I started to cry again.

Big giant watering pot.

“And yeah, I want you and Dad to be together because I want us to be a family. I’ve never had that. But I really just want you to be happy too. I’ve seen what’s out there, and Dad is one of the good ones and he really cares about you. I don’t understand why you won’t give him a chance.”

I stared at her, feeling her hope pressing heavily upon me. “I would do anything for you, Maia MacLeod, but I can’t do that. If things work out between your dad and me, it would have to be because I trusted him. It would fall apart if I did this because on paper it makes sense for us all.”

She gave me this smile, this small smile that made me pause. “Grace, how can you learn to trust Dad if you won’t give him the chance to win that trust?”