Epilogue

Bethany stood a few feet away from the door to the bar and lit a cigarette. She had quit, mostly, but sometimes when she was nervous she couldn't help but reach for one. And this - walking into an exclusive Nashville party that contained both of her beautiful, famous, estranged daughters - was about as nervous as you could get.

"Can I have one of those?"

Bethany looked up. A woman had arrived next to her. She was glamorous, tall, and her voice had a sexy lilt to it that made Bethany feel small and plain.

"Oh, sure." Bethany offered her the pack and the woman shook one out. Placing it between her expertly painted lips she clicked the lighter, flame flickering in the dim light of the street.

"This is it, right?" the woman asked. "The after party for Cassidy Carver?"

"It is," Bethany said. The sound of her youngest daughter's name coming out the mouth of a stranger like she was public property was achingly familiar to her after the path her eldest child had taken, and so was the mixture of pride and nerves.

"Savannah Grace's little sister," the woman breathed, sounding almost equally as shocked as Bethany felt.

Bethany looked at her more closely. She was perhaps in her forties, attractive, but something there in her face like she too had known suffering. Bethany was always drawn to faces like that. She knew that in a different life she might have looked just like an older Savannah Grace. She wondered if anyone would ever pick her as her mother now, with her face creased with the bone deep weariness that came from struggling her whole damn life.

"I'm their mom," she revealed, something she didn't say to anyone ever really, feeling too much shame at the distance between their lives. The woman beside her straight up recoiled for a second, staring at her like she was a threat. Bethany blinked in fright, her fingers quivering under the intensity of her gaze. The woman swallowed, then took another drag of her cigarette. She looked at Bethany for a long time, her face gradually softening.

"Of course you are," she said. "Do you see much of them?" she asked after a moment.

Bethany looked down. She took a big breath of nicotine and tried to make herself feel stronger.

"No," she said. "I made a lot of mistakes."

"Well," the woman said, "me too."

Bethany absorbed that. It felt like a kindness being offered.

"Cassidy invited me," Bethany said. "I almost said no. It's scary, knowing that I have so much I need to atone for." She met the woman's eyes. There was an ache there. She seemed to understand. "I've missed so much of their lives. Especially Savannah." Her voice cracked. "She was my first baby and I let her… I made her go it alone."

The woman grabbed Bethany's hand and squeezed it.

"We fucked up," she said. "We were trying to survive the best way we knew how. But we caused a lot of hurt along the way."

Bethany nodded, slowly. "It's a lot to atone for. What if they can't forgive me?"

"Well," the woman stubbed out her cigarette, "I guess it's worth the risk to find out. What we stand to gain is… everything. Isn't it?"

Bethany straightened her spine. She dropped the cigarette butt and ground it under her heel.

"Yes," she said. "It's everything."

"Then I guess we better go in there," the woman told her. "God, I'm so scared."

"Shall we go in together?" Bethany asked, her knees slightly trembling.

"Yes please," the woman said. They looked at each other, eyes grateful for having found a kindred spirit on their journey tonight.

"What's your name?" Bethany asked her as they approached the door, side by side.

"I'm Rachel," she said.

Bethany took her hand and in they walked together.