Page 96 of Two Hit Wonder

The sound Iona made was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "Oh thank God. Thank God. I've been calling everyone, I thought, I didn't know what to think."

"She took a train. And a bus. Walked the last mile." Maeve looked at Mo, who was watching her with wide eyes. "She's resourceful, I'll give her that."

"Can I talk to her?"

Maeve handed the phone over. Mo took it and said, "Hi Mum," in a small voice, and then Iona was talking, and Mo was crying, and Maeve stepped back to give them space.

She stood by the window, looking at Eejit eating the grass by the wall in the fading light and thought that this had been a good place. A safe place. The perfect place. But now… it was too small, wasn’t it?

"Here," Mo said, handing the phone back to Maeve.

"Hey," Maeve said quietly. “You’re not to worry. I’ll bring her. Is tomorrow alright?"

Iona laughed almost hysterically. "Alright? It’s brilliant. Perfect. Exactly right. Thank all the gods she’s with you, Maeve. I’m so relieved it’s like I can breathe again."

And in that one second, it all fit together. Just like that. The forgiveness, but also the trust. Iona trusted her with her daughter, the most precious thing in her life. The daughter that was named after her, even after everything that she’d done, even after that terrible night.

A lightness took ahold of her, like she might float away any second, like every bone in her body had turned to air. And Maeve smiled, really smiled, for the first time in fifteen years.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Taking a train from Scotland to London took a long time. Long enough that Maeve had plenty of time to think about all the things that could go wrong. Not to mention all the things that had already gone wrong.

Mo had fallen asleep somewhere around Perth, her head lolling against the window in a way that was going to give her a crick in her neck. Maeve had thought about waking her, but the kid deserved the rest. Running away from home was exhausting. Maeve remembered.

They'd talked most of the way through Scotland, once Mo had stopped pretending she wasn't nervous about going home. The conversation had been lighter than the night before, less about boys and hiding and more about music, about the old days, about what it had been like.

"Did you hate each other?" Mo had asked. "The band, I mean. When it all fell apart?"

Maeve had considered this. "No. I think that was the problem. It would have been easier if we hated each other."

"Why?"

She laughed. "Because then I could have blamed them. Instead, I had to blame myself."

Mo had nodded at this, like this made sense to her. Maybe it did. Teenagers understood guilt better than adults gave them credit for.

"You were pretty famous though, right?" Mo asked later, chewing on a packet of crisps she'd wheedled out of Maeve when the trolley came around.

"For about ten minutes."

"That's longer than most people."

"Profoundly philosophical for someone who just crammed six crisps in her mouth at once."

Mo grinned, unrepentant. "What was my mum like? Back then, I mean. Before she was, you know. A mum."

Maeve considered the question. Iona at nineteen. Iona with her guitar and her laugh and her complete inability to not care about every single person she met. "Annoying," she said finally.

Mo raised an eyebrow. She was getting better at that. It reminded Maeve painfully of Iona.

"In a good way," Maeve amended. "She was relentlessly cheerful. Aggressively optimistic. The sort of person who would see storm clouds and insist they were just 'dramatic lighting.'"

"Sounds about right," Mo said, grinning.

"And talented. Really talented. People always focused on the singing because that's the front of house bit, but your mum could play. Can play. She just never believed it."

Mo was quiet for a moment, crisps forgotten. "She still doesn't."