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slide easily down her throat, though it did little to cool her off.
    It was hot. Humid. The fans in the nearly century-old house unable to keep up with the heat that sweltered in this part of the bayou. She dabbed at the sweat on her forehead with the corner of a kitchen towel.
    Should she have answered the stupid phone?
    Nope. Abby wasn’t ready to go there. Not today. Probably not ever.
    It was twenty years ago today…
    The lyrics of an old Beatles tune, one of her mother’s favorites, spun through Abby’s head. “Don’t,” she told herself. No reason to replay the past as she had for the last two decades. It was time to move on. Tonight, she vowed, she’d start over. This was the beginning of Abby Chastain, Phase II. She’d try to forget that on this very day, twenty years ago, when her mother had turned thirty-five—just as Abby was doing today—Faith Chastain had ended her tormented life. Horribly. Tragically.
    “Oh, God, Mom,” she said now, closing her eyes. The memory that she’d tried so hard to repress emerged as if in slow motion. She recalled her father’s sedan rolling through the open wrought-iron gates. Past manicured lawns toward the tall, red-brick building where the drive curved around a fountain—a fountain where three angels sprayed water upward toward the starlit heavens. Abby, already into boys at the time, and thinking of how she was going to ask Trey Hilliard to Friday night’s Sadie Hawkins dance, had climbed out of the car just as her father had cut the engine. Carrying a box with a bright, fuchsia-colored bow, she’d looked up to the third story, to the windows of her mother’s room.
    But no warm light glowed through the panes.
    Instead the room was dark.
    And then Abby had felt an odd sensation, a soft breath that touched the back of her neck and nearly stopped her heart. Something was wrong. Very wrong. “Mama?” she whispered, using the name for her mother she hadn’t spoken in a decade.
    She’d started for the wide steps leading to the hospital’s front door when she heard the crash.
    Her head jerked up.
    Glass sprayed. Tiny pieces catching in the bluish light.
    A hideous shriek rose in the night. A dark body fell through the sky. It landed on the concrete with a heavy bone-cracking thud.
    Fear tore through her.
    Denial rose in her throat. “No! No! Noooo!” Abby dropped the box and flew down the steps to the small broken form lying faceup on the cement. Blood, dark and oozing, began to pool beneath her mother’s head. Wide whiskey-colored eyes stared sightlessly upward.
    Abby pitched herself toward the still, crumpled form.
    “Abby!”
    As if from the other side of a long tunnel she heard her name being called. Her father’s desperate, tense voice. “Abby, don’t! Oh, God! Help! Someone get help! Faith!”
    She fell to her knees. Tears welled in her eyes and terror chilled her to the bottom of her soul. “Mama! Mama!” she cried, until strong hands and arms pulled her struggling body away.
    Now, she blinked and gave herself a quick mental shake. “Jesus,” she whispered, dispelling the horrific vision that had haunted her for all of twenty years. She was suddenly cognizant of water dripping from the faucet over the kitchen sink. Rather than shut off the pressure, she turned it on full, until water was rushing from the tap. Quickly, she cupped her hands under the stream, then splashed the water onto her face, cooling her cheeks, pushing back the soul-jarring memory and hoping to wash away the stain of that night forever.
    Trembling, she snapped the dishtowel from the counter and swiped at her face. What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she just told herself she wouldn’t go down that painful path again? “Idiot,” she murmured, folding the towel, noticing her half-full glass of wine on the counter, and feeling something about the memory wasn’t quite right.
    “Get over yourself,” she rebuked as she picked up the glass, looked at the glimmering depths for a