Free The Fortune Cafe by Heather B. Moore, Melanie Jacobson, Julie Wright Page B

nothing. She searched each room again, checking under beds, behind draperies, inside closets, but her mom wasn’t there.
    “All right, Mom!” she shouted to the walls. “You got me! I can’t find you! Come out!”
    No response.
    Her phone buzzed in her pocket, nearly startling her into a heart attack. She glanced at the screen, deciding she wouldn’t answer if it was Harrison calling back. Not recognizing the number, she answered. “Hello?”
    “Is this Emma Armstrong?” The man’s voice sounded hard.
    “Yes.” Her mind shouted questions back to the man. Who are you? What’s going on? “This is Emma,” she said.
    “This is Officer Cowan from the Seashell Beach Police Department. Is your mother’s name Corinne Armstrong?”
    “Yes.” Emma slumped down on a chair in the kitchen, her legs unable to hold her weight any longer. “Do you know where she is?” she asked, feeling the tired in her bones rumble in her own voice.
    “We have her in custody. We’ve already called her psychiatrist who confirmed she isn’t a danger to herself as long as she is taking her medicine and in the care of a responsible party. We’ll release her to you if you’ll come pick her up and agree to keep watch over her, otherwise we’ll need to hold her in the psych ward for three days for observation.”
    “Do I dare ask why she’s in custody?” Emma asked.
    “She tried to jump off the pier on Seashell Beach. Witnesses stopped her and called us.”
    Emma nodded in response, but said nothing.
    “Miss Armstrong?”
    “I’m here. I’ll be there to get her soon.”
    She hung up the phone but continued to sit, unable to make her feet and legs shift to bear the weight of this new burden settling over her shoulders. She’d lied when she told Harrison she “had” this. She hadn’t known she’d been lying, but not knowing didn’t change the lie. She didn’t have anything at all.
    Her mom had found her way to Seashell Beach. The pier was a stone’s throw from the restaurant Emma just left. The location was not an accident. It was one of her mom’s lessons— her way of saying, “See? I control you. You don’t control me.”
    After several minutes of shallow breathing, Emma forced herself to her feet. She closed the windows in the house, turned off the lights she’d turned on, and shut the front door behind her after locking it. “Yes, Mom, I see.”

Emma paced the small pathway in her apartment between the boxes of books that went all the way to the ceiling. She blew her hair out of her eyes in exasperation as she shifted the phone to her other ear. “You weren’t there, Rosalee. You have no idea what it was like.” She no longer tried to hide her own irritation. If her sister insisted on being obtuse, then she at least had the right to be annoyed by it.
    “I don’t ever ask for anything!” Emma shouted at her sister. “Not once since Daddy died have I asked for you to help me with this, but she’s your mother too! I only need one weekend.” The evil horrible part of her chanted how she should’ve left her mother in the psych ward for three days.
    Rosalee whined and hedged and claimed to be busy even though Emma knew darn good and well that Rosalee didn’t have anything actually going on. Rosalee didn’t work a job because her husband was some fancy CEO of a soup company. She had two kids, but also had a nanny who took the brunt of the issues with child rearing. And she had a housekeeper who also cooked the family dinners. She had no hobbies, didn’t read, didn’t have any artistic endeavors, didn’t make anything or fix anything or solve anything. Emma honestly didn’t know what her sister did with her time, which was why Emma felt no guilt in not backing down from asking this favor.
    “She’s suicidal, Rosalee! She tried jumping off a pier at sunset. She can’t be left alone right now because she won’t take her medications unless someone is there to force it down her throat, and because the