Free Adopted Parents by Candy Halliday

always praised Janet over her—that habit was unlikely to change because Janet wasn’t here.
    A cold shiver ran straight through Hallie as the details of that fateful day replayed in her mind. How, after dropping off Ahn at her play date, David and Janet had driven separately to the Mercedes dealership to drop off her car for regular maintenance. And it was on their way back to the house together that David’s BMW was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Any other day Ahn would have been with them—a sobering thought.
    Hallie’s heart warmed now when she looked over at Ahn. As long as she had this little girl in her life she would still have a bit of Janet and David in her life, too.
    “Well,” Roberta said. “I’ve cooked all week, and I’ve left you every kind of casserole imaginable in the freezer in case you don’t care for the new housekeeper’s cooking.”
    “You don’t know how much I appreciate you doing that, Roberta. It will keep me from having to cook on the weekends.”
    “You’re going to have your hands full, there’s no doubt about that.”
    They both glanced at Ahn, who was playing with her pasta again. The action was Hallie’s hint that Ahn was full.
    “One more thing.”
    There was always one more thing with Roberta, but she sounded so serious, Hallie paid attention.
    “I know we have our differences, Hallie. And I know I’ve always been harder on you than I was on Janet. But I’ve worried about you more. You give off this impression that you don’t need anyone but yourself, and we both know that’s a lie. Be careful and don’t get too attached to Ahn or to Nate. If you do, you’ll only end up hurt when you do find new parents.”
    Hallie didn’t know what to say.
    So she did the unthinkable. Hallie put her arms around Roberta and hugged her.
    Surprisingly, Roberta hugged her back.
    “You don’t have to worry about me,” Hallie said when she stepped out of their embrace. “I’ll be careful.”
    “See that you do.” Roberta’s tone was back to its usual authoritative note. She looked at her watch. “It’s nine o’clock so I guess I’ll call Nate on the intercom and let him know I’m ready. You know what traffic in downtown Boston is like. It’ll take him at least two hours round trip to my condominium. There’s no need to tie up his entire Saturday waiting around on me.”
    Hallie was surprised when Roberta made the first move this time and reached out and squeezed Hallie’s hand. “Just remember, I’m always only a phone call away.”
    “Same here,” Hallie told her. “Always.”

    N ATE HAD REMAINED in the background during Roberta’s last week—Hallie’s idea, not his. She’d explained that Roberta was not pleased with the idea of them practically living together.
    Nate wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, either. He wisely didn’t point that out to Hallie, however.
    The less friction between them, the better.
    The less anything between them, the better.
    The excuse he gave Roberta for staying out of their way had actually been the truth. He’d recently been approached by Dirk Gentry, a filmmaker who wanted to collaborate on a documentary covering the first decade of the new millennium. For many of the headline news events over the past ten years, Nate had been there. And he had more than one award-winning photo to prove it. Dirk had earned a good reputation in documentary filmmaking already. He’d insisted together they would make an unstoppable team. And now that he was on board, Nate hoped Dirk’s prediction was as good as his filmmaking.
    Earlier, he’d put Dirk off because of his assignment in Afghanistan, not to mention the time it would take to go through his catalog of photos and his film footage. But now that his evenings were free, Nate could devote the time the project required.
    When he’d told Hallie about the documentary, she’d seemed as relieved as he was that he had something to occupy his night. As stupid as it sounded, the fact that