SIX

      “Mom … Mom … MOM!”

      Oakley jolted awake, almost rolling off the couch, and blinked in the bright lamplight. “Huh, what?”

      Wispy threads of her dream clung to her brain like spiderwebs—something where Pike was sweaty and shirtless, like that photo of him drumming but with no drums involved.

      “Why are you sleeping?” Reagan asked. Oakley’s vision cleared and she stared up at Reagan’s big, worried eyes. “It’s only six thirty. Are you sick?”

      Oakley yawned and sat up. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, baby. I’m fine. I guess that show was just really boring.”

      Little frown lines appeared around Reagan’s mouth—her thinking face. Reagan didn’t like when things didn’t go according to her expected schedule. A few years ago, something like Mom falling asleep before bedtime would’ve probably freaked Reagan out enough for a tantrum. But thankfully, they’d moved past the tantrums with age and the help of Reagan’s therapists. Her little girl was learning to cope in quieter, more effective ways. High-functioning. That’s what went on all the reports now.

      Oakley thanked the universe every day for those simple words. It was far beyond what she’d hoped for when she’d brought her mute three-year-old into a clinic and they’d given her the autism diagnosis. At twenty, Oakley had barely been keeping her head above water with single motherhood. The word autism had felt like a death sentence for them both. How was she going to handle something that big on her own?

      But she had. They had. Her and Rae together. Day by day. Hour by hour. Sometimes in the worst times, minute by minute. Now she had her smart, quirky, beautiful eleven-year-old girl to show for it. They’d both learned how to work with each other and how to accommodate the needs Reagan still had. Not every day was a good day, but they far outweighed the bad now.

      “What have you got there?” Oakley asked, noticing the papers clutched in Reagan’s hand.

      “Did you write these?” She held the pages up like an accusation.

      Oakley rubbed her eyes and leaned closer. The handwritten title “Dandelion” stared back at her. Crap. “Where’d you find those?”

      “In the garage. I was looking for some paint for a project and found a box of papers and sheet music.”

      “You’re not supposed to be digging through stuff in the garage without my permission.”

      She cocked her head in that way Oakley knew would only grow more sarcastic as she closed in on the teen years. “You were sleeping. How could I have asked permission?”

      Oakley sighed. Reagan was going to be a demon on the debate team one day. “Then you wake me up or wait. Did you dig through any other boxes?”

      “No. They were labeled with boring stuff.”

      Thank God. She’d managed to keep her past tucked away from Reagan this long, she didn’t need it coming out now. Good thing she hadn’t labeled any of the boxes “Remnants of a Failed Teen Pop Star.” One day she’d tell her the story of how Mommy was kind of famous once upon a time. But not now. She wasn’t ready for the questions that Reagan would have yet.

      “So are these yours?” she asked again.

      Oakley took the pages from her. “Yes, I liked to write songs when I was younger.”

      She still did. Her feelings tended to come out in lyrics, and she couldn’t turn that nozzle off. But now they were messy words scrawled on sticky notes or in her journal. Words that had nowhere to go except into the silence of ink on paper.

      “Could we use some of these for the Bluebonnet songs? I like the one about wishes. How does it sound on the guitar?”

      Oakley smiled. “Wait, Ms. Punk Chick likes ‘Dandelion’?”

      Reagan lifted her bony shoulder, a little sheepish. “I like that part about people’s wishes floating in the air. That seems kind of cool. And the other girls will probably like it because it’s about flowers. Even though it’s really about wishes and not flowers.”

      “What about the boys?”

      “Who cares what they like?”

      Oakley laughed. “You’ll probably care one day.”

      “Not today.”

      Oakley reached out and ruffled Reagan’s pixie hair—a cut Rae had insisted on despite it drawing some teasing from the other girls at school. Short hair was a no-no in tween land, apparently, but Reagan wasn’t one to take polls of popular opinion—a blessing and a curse. “Go and get my guitar, and I’ll try to remember how this one goes so you can decide if you really like it.”

      Reagan’s face lit up and she ran off to get the guitar. Oakley reached for the watered down Coke she’d left sweating on the side table and swigged it for the caffeine more than the taste. She was going to have to find a way to grab some more sleep. Last night, her regular eight o’clock Wednesday caller, Edward, had been more than a little put out by the fact that she hadn’t been able to talk to him at the scheduled time. He said he’d called first and had gotten redirected to the wrong number and then when he’d called a second time, she hadn’t been able to talk yet.

      She’d almost died on the spot when the phone had rung in front of Pike. On Wednesdays, her brother kept Reagan overnight to give Rae a chance to visit with her cousin Lucas and to give Oakley a night to herself. But instead of relaxing, she typically used it to log more hours on the line and earn extra money. So she had her account set to sign in automatically at eight. And Edward was used to getting his call at that time every week.

      She’d apologized profusely, not wanting to lose one of her most steady and decent customers, and had agreed to give him time off the clock late last night after she was done with her other calls. So he’d taken full advantage of that time. He liked to talk to her like she was his girlfriend. So though it always led to sex stuff in the end, he first had conversations with her about life, things going on in the news, the weather. She had to make up things about her job and life, keeping