Free Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green Page A

the toilet seat, retching into the bowl.
    “Are you okay?” A wave of sympathy sweeps over Andi as Emily turns around and looks at her, shaking her head, her face a pale shade of grey, her eyes red-rimmed. Andi rubs her back and, with her other hand, gathers Emily’s hair out of her face, holding it out of the way.
    “What happened, sweetie?” Andi says, reaching over for some tissues to wipe Emily’s mouth.
    Emily finishes and collapses next to the toilet, closing her eyes. “I feel sick,” she moans.
    “I know, baby,” Andi says, getting up and wetting a washcloth, pressing the compress on Emily’s forehead. “How’s that? Is that better?”
    Emily nods.
    “Oh, Em. I think you’re sick because you mixed alcohol and drugs. Your body’s rejecting it.”
    “Didn’t,” Emily mumbles.
    “I can smell the pot,” Andi says, not unkindly.
    “Gonna be sick again.” Emily reaches blindly for the pot and retches again, leaning her head on the seat in between. Andi rewets the washcloth, and holds it on the back of Emily’s neck until she’s done.
    “Do you want to try and get to bed?” Andi asks gently, helping Emily up. “I’ll get you a bowl to keep by the bed. Here, let me help.” And, with an arm around Emily’s waist to steady her weaving, she walks her back into her bedroom.
    Emily sinks into bed, and looks up at Andi, the color slowly returning to her face.
    “Can you not tell Dad?” she manages to get out. “Please?”
    “I won’t tell him.” Andi doesn’t know why she agrees, but Ethan doesn’t need to know. She sits down on the bed, next to Emily, and strokes the hair out of her eyes, holding the compress down before standing up to get a bowl.
    “Where are you going?” Emily’s eyes flash open in a panic.
    “I’m just going to get a bowl,” Andi says. “I’ll be right back.”
    As Andi places the bowl next to the bed, Emily looks as if she might have fallen asleep, and Andi quietly turns to leave when a small voice says, “Don’t go.”
    Andi turns around and goes back to the bed.
    “Can you stay with me? I’m scared.”
    “Oh, Em.” Andi’s heart bursts open. “Of course.” And when Andi sits down, Emily slips a clammy hand into Andi’s and turns her head, closing her eyes.
    “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
    “It’s okay,” Andi says. “These things happen.”
    “No, I mean I’m sorry for being so mean to you.”
    Andi wants to say something. Is trying to say something. But the lump in her throat is so big, it won’t let any words emerge, and she silently strokes Emily’s forehead, the dislike, irritation, and yes, sometimes hate she so often feels for her stepdaughter having disappeared like a puff of smoke.
    *   *   *
    Andi knows that when the girls are at their mother’s house, they are lucky if there is any cereal in the pantry for breakfast. Sophia tells Andi how she gets herself up, dresses, packs her backpack, and makes her own snack. If there’s food at home for breakfast, they help themselves, and if, as so often happens, Brooke has not managed the grocery shopping, Sophia counts off the hours until snack time, whereupon her teacher will dispense crackers for the kids who forgot a snack.
    Sophia has even confessed to sometimes “borrowing” food from her father’s, hiding it in her bedroom at her mother’s, doling out crackers, or cookies, for both of them to take to school, or munch on when Brooke is too drunk to think about dinner, and there isn’t any food in the house anyway.
    It breaks Andi’s heart. Often, Andi will drop a snack off at school on the days the girls are with their mom. She knows that Brooke sleeps late, usually hungover, rousing herself occasionally to plant a hazy good-bye kiss on Sophia.
    She just doesn’t know quite how bad it is.
    When the girls are with their dad, Andi makes sure she is up, well before Sophia, and has breakfast all ready. Waffles, pancakes, bacon, strawberries, French toast. She makes different