Free Broken Trust by Shannon Baker

Abigail opened a creamer.
    Nora dumped the little cream buckets over her cereal. “Never mind. It’s no big deal.”
    “While you were in the mountains?” Abigail sounded on the verge of an attack herself.
    Nora shoveled Cheerios into her mouth. Stupid to bring it up.
    “You could have been hurt. Why do you insist on these dangerous sports?”
    Nora swallowed. “Abbey and I love to hike.”
    Abbey raised his head and flopped his tail against the floor.
    Abigail leaned in, her eyes sharp. “What triggered it?”
    The kachina sightings were like drug flashbacks from the worst time in her life, and she didn’t want to talk about it. But Abigail pulled the confession from her as if she were five years old again and had picked all the tulips in the garden. “I keep seeing a flash of blue, like I did in Flagstaff during all that snow-making business. Then I thought I saw the kachina and all of it came flooding back. I thought of Scott and then”—her throat closed and she had to wait a beat to let it clear—“Heather. Then I sort of shut down.”
    It was easier to keep things to herself in phone conversations than when her mother sat in front of her.
    Abigail sat back, a frown of concentration on her face.
    Nora kept eating. When she swallowed, she felt a little more con trol.
    “Have you had a panic attack before?” Abigail asked.
    Nora shook her head.
    “My friend, Charlotte— you know, she and her husband used to go on cruises with Berle and me? But her husband, what a bore. He smoked these awful cigars and the smoke always drifted to our balcony. Surprising how even the sea air didn’t—”
    “Mother!”
    Abigail started. “Oh, well. Charlotte had these panic attacks. Not that anything terrible ever happened. She had a weak disposition—”
    Nora raised her eyebrows in warning.
    Abigail huffed. “Anyhoo, she said that once you have one attack, you’re prone to have more. It’s like one episode introduces the behavior to your brain and it knows it can do it again.”
    “Great.”
    Abigail picked up the cereal box and poured more in Nora’s bowl. She started peeling tops off creamers for her . “You need to do something about it.”
    Nora peeled a few creamers herself . “I’m taking Tae Kw o n Do classes.”
    Abigail started pouring the tubs on the cereal. “What for?”
    Nora shoveled in a bite and talked around it. “Self-confidence.”
    Abigail studied Nora. “You’re spending too much time alone. You should get in touch with Cole Huntsman. You two would make a great couple.”
    Nora choked on Cheerios. Why would Abigail mention him? Nora hadn’t seen him in a year, if she didn’t count ill-advised day dreams and a fantasy or two. Cole definitely did not belong in her life now. Maybe never. “I have Abbey.”
    “Solitude is fine. I know I’m steeped in it on that crazy mountain. But you need people to talk to, dear.”
    “Is that why you’re here? Too much solitude? What’s up with Charlie, anyway?”
    Abigail’s eyes widened and she tightened her lips.
    Nora sat up straight. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing.”
    Nora leaned forward. “Tell me.”
    Abigail studied her for a moment, her eyes teared up. “I’m leaving Charlie.”
    Smack me in the head with a two-by-four. “What? Why?”
    “He’s having an affair.”

ten
    Nora dropped her spoon into her bowl with a clink.
    Kachinas dancing on mountaintops made more sense than Charlie having an affair. “But he adores you.”
    “Apparently, he adores someone else more.”
    “You need to explain … ”
    A soft tap at the front door made them both turn. Abbey let out a woof. Nora pushed back from the table and started for the door. “This conversation is not over.”
    “You aren’t going to open that without seeing who’s out there, are you?”
    Nora shook her head and reached for the knob. “It’s a big apartment complex, no one is going to stand out there and gun us down.”
    She pulled the door open to a shivering