The Good Mom by Cathryn Parry Page B

of the waterfront took her breath away; the height of the floors made her dizzy. Aidan lived in a world of wealth that was out of her league.
    She turned and looked for him, but he wasn’t in this main room.
    Instead, there was a pile of belongings, heaped like an unlit bonfire. On the bottom, two huge paintings. Modern art—they looked like splashes of paint enclosed in plain black frames. Beside the paintings were stacks of smaller frames. Diplomas. Awards. Piles of mail. Also frilly pillows. A side table. A small desk and matching chair. Boxes filled with books and files. Some knickknacks. A clock. A laptop computer. Some electronics. A box of things from the kitchen...mugs, some glasses with initials on them. A set of expensive luggage. A mountain of winter coats. A leather jacket and some boots.
    Aidan had been busy, too.
    Her heart ached for him. She knew this had been hard for him. In essence, it sounded like he’d been rejected by Fleur, and yet he couldn’t be honest and tell anyone about it. He had to pretend, alone. Of course he grieved her death—whether he was aware of that or not.
    Now Ashley could see where the prospect of removing Fleur’s belongings had made him so angry. But he wasn’t callous; he was grieving.
    Ashley sighed. The awkwardness and sorrow she’d felt touching a dead woman’s things filled her, as well. She knew the awesomeness of her responsibility. It made her think of herself, to put herself in a role-reversal situation. What if it had happened to her? Or worse, to her son? It made her shudder. She felt for Fleur’s family. She felt for Aidan, too.
    She woke from her reverie as she came across a cache at the bottom of Fleur’s underwear drawer. Ah, women and their underwear drawers.
    She’d dutifully put those things into the cardboard box for Flo and Albert. There were some small boxes of old jewelry hidden there. Into the cardboard box they went. At the very back of the drawer, there was a journal. Ashley’s heart nearly stopped. Of course, she should have expected it. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
    The journal was an ordinary one. Plain tan leather. No lock. No name on the cover.
    Ashley had kept a journal while she’d been in rehab. It had helped her sort out her feelings. She’d thrown it away—burned it, actually, in a private, triumphant ceremony—because the worst thing that could happen would be for her curious young son to find something so deeply personal. She no longer did a lot of things because of living with her son, protecting her son, above all being a good mother.
    That had made her think of throwing the journal away. Or destroying it. Certainly, that is what she would have wanted, in the woman’s shoes.
    Maybe Ashley could tuck the diary into the bookcase. Let Aidan find it and decide what to do with it himself, later in a more private moment. Perhaps he’d see it when he felt less raw.
    Ashley slid the diary between two volumes on the bottom shelf of Aidan’s bookcase.
    She continued on through the living room toward the kitchen. To the side, there was a nook, again with the floor-to-ceiling windows, where Aidan sat alone at a table, staring out the window.
    She backed away, slipped into the kitchen, sidestepping some broken glass and a spill of water—that must have been the crashing noise she’d heard earlier. She looked for a broom but didn’t see one at hand. Later, she would sweep up the glass for him. For now, he needed something else.
    She opened a cabinet door until she found a box of English tea and some sugar packets. No kettle that she saw, but there was a microwave and a refrigerator that had a water filter.
    There was one thing that Ashley knew how to do well—her go-to reaction to any difficult situation—and she made the decision then and there to take care of Aidan.
    Quickly, she made two tall glasses of iced tea. By habit—because it was what