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of her mother’s house, she just blurted it all out in one breath, thinking it might be better to rip it off like a Band-Aid.

      “Yeah, I know,” he answered, once Dallas had finished.

      “What? You know she’s married and has kids? How could you still want to marry her?”

      “I just do, Dallas. You have no idea what the situation really is. Her husband doesn’t love her, and they are getting a divorce.”

      “When? I mean he was there fixing the washing machine and her kids were screaming and crying for her to stay home.”

      But rather than listen to her concern, rather than talking things out with her as he always did, Houston seemed to have grown cold. “You need to stay out of this. It’s none of your business. She thought no one would be home when she took you there today. I’m sorry you had to see all that.”

      “Does Mom know?” she asked.

      “Yeah, and she understands,” he said pointedly. “She knows Eleanor loves me and I love her.”

      “But what about her kids? They were dirty, and her mother was smoking while she was taking care of them. I mean—” she paused and swallowed hard “—is this the kind of woman you really want to marry? Someone who cares so little about her family? Think about how Dad—”

      He cut her off midsentence by hitting his fist on the wheel. Houston had had about all he could take from what he suddenly saw as a meddling little sister.

      “Don’t imply she’s not good enough, Dallas. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Now just get out, okay?”

      She was brokenhearted as she slowly climbed out of his car and went into the house. Her hero had fallen off his pedestal.

      The next morning, she asked her mom all about it, and LouAnn confirmed her worst fears. It was all true. But Dallas wasn’t going to give up that easily. She’d always thought her mom was far too easy with Houston, trying to make up for the fact that she had depended on him to take their father’s place for so much of his life.

      “He’s happy and that’s all that matters,” LouAnn said.

      “But he won’t be for long. He just likes the attention right now. She’s older. That’s all it is,” Dallas reasoned. “You have to know that. Even I know that.”

      “That’s enough,” LouAnn snapped, stopping the conversation cold. She’d walked out of the room, leaving Dallas alone with her worry.

      Over the next few weeks, Dallas continued to try in vain to save her precious brother. Her tears and pleas fell on blind eyes and deaf ears. Until one day it reached the boiling point.

      “Dallas, you have to stop this,” LouAnn shouted.

      “Please, don’t let him ruin his life like this,” she begged through tears. It was just after Houston had graduated from Alabama. He was standing in the hallway, LouAnn in the kitchen with Dallas.

      “I’ve had enough of this. I can’t be around her anymore. She’s messing up my life. She’s calling Eleanor at home and asking her to leave me alone,” Houston shouted. He walked into the kitchen and faced his mother. “Get her away from me or you won’t see me anymore.”

      One threat to LouAnn and that’s all it took. She’d already lost one man in her life, and she was not going to let that happen twice.

      “That’s it, Dallas,” her mother said, turning to look at her. “You’ve been nothing but selfish. Look around! Because of you, my family is falling apart all over again. I will not let you drive my son out of my life. You’re going to live with your father. Pack your things right now.”

      “What? No, Mom, please,” Dallas begged. “Please, don’t send me away. Look, I’m sorry. I just love Houston and I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. But...just give me another chance. I promise I won’t say anything else.” Dallas was overwhelmed, hysterical that her mother could really do something like this, that she would lose her home and her mother along with her brother.

      “No, I’m sorry, that’s it,” LouAnn said, sitting down in a chair at the kitchen table. She looked older, suddenly. Worn out. Exhausted. And done with Dallas. “I can’t take this anymore. I just can’t...I’m callin’ your daddy. I’m sorry,” LouAnn said, head in her hands.

      Houston went storming out the front door and jumped in his car. Dallas cried as she packed, as she heard her mother on the phone with her father. On the drive over, her mother looked like a different person. Like the shell of the mother she’d grown up knowing.

      At her father’s that night, she cried herself to sleep and skipped school the next day. Her eyes nearly swollen shut from tears, she began writing what would be the first of many letters to her brother over the next year. She wouldn’t be able to go back to school for several days. Her world had collapsed, snatched away from her by the very people she’d trusted the most, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. She thought of running away, but in the end, she developed a coping mechanism. If the people she loved could be so cold and cruel, then so could she. And the armor and the firewalls began to take shape.

      She never even knew what became of her brother after all that. She thought he might still be in Alabama somewhere, but she hadn’t seen him or looked for him. And he had never tried to contact her.

      She took in a deep breath and turned off the water, exhausted from reliving the memories she’d buried so deep and tried to forget. Wilhelmina was sitting at her water dish in the bathroom.

      “I do love you, little girl,” she said as she reached down to pet her. After drying off, she and Wilhelmina crawled into bed.

      Dallas tossed and thrashed all night. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered one by one the things she’d faced today: the realization that, with Christmas only two and a half weeks away, they’d be announcing the anchor job and, with it, the fate of her career. That she’d been ordered to direct a children’s play when she knew nothing about directing or children. That she’d be stuck working closely with Cal until the play was over—a man who she managed to both despise and be drawn to at the same time. And then, worst of all, the mother who had abandoned her so long ago, who had chosen one of her children over the other, had decided she wanted to be in touch. It was all too much for one day, for one person, and Dallas couldn’t bring herself to face it.

      The best thing she could do was to shove it all down as she had been doing for years. She would have to hold herself together just a little longer to get through Christmas. She exhaled and closed her eyes.

      Wilhelmina curled up next to her, purring as she snuggled. Dallas tried to rest and fall sleep, but it was almost impossible to turn her mind off.

      How much longer could this coping mechanism work?

      5

      Dallas woke up early the next morning. Between thoughts of her mother and the house across the street decorated for Christmas with more lights than Times Square, she’d barely gotten any rest at all. She wondered if they were trying to get her to notice them and put them on TV, and she said as much to Daniel as they left to cover their first story of the day.

      “They’ve put up so many lights, I swear, I wake up believing I’m in New York City,” Dallas told him as they pulled out of the station lot.

      “Why don’t you complain?” he asked.

      “I think that would just egg them on,” she said. Surprisingly, she felt pretty good this morning in spite of all that was going on. It was a new day and that meant she was a day closer to that anchor seat...she hoped.

      “I can’t believe we’re going to cover the Christmas promotion at Lewis’s new radio station. That just sounds crazy,” she said.

      “I know. But he’s hired these two new girls from Tennessee and they’re doing wonders over there. They’re twins but don’t look a

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