Someone Like You by Barbara Bretton

her if she loved her mother, if she had the feelings a daughter was supposed to have—well, that was another story.
    She waited until her mother disappeared behind the swinging doors, then made her way back to surgical waiting, where she found Michael engrossed in conversation with Karen.
    She walked up to where they were standing and gave Karen a quick hug. Get used to it, she warned herself. Her worlds were colliding, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
    “I managed to see Mimi just before they wheeled her in,” she told them. “They say the repairs are nothing serious, but—” She shivered. The sight of her mother, so tiny and frail, on the gurney had unnerved her deeply. She wasn’t one who necessarily believed in omens and portents, but there was little doubt she had taken a look into the future, and what she had seen was terrifying.
    She glanced from Karen to Michael. “I take it you introduced yourselves.”
    “We’re very resourceful,” Karen said with a wink for Michael. She was ten years younger than Cat and at least a lifetime or two more evolved. One of those old souls who had stepped into the world fully formed and in charge.
    “Yeah,” he said, draping an arm across Cat’s shoulder and giving her a comforting squeeze. “We’re old friends now.”
    She had to remind herself that was a good thing as she studied Michael and Karen for signs of collusion.
    Karen, of course, didn’t miss a trick. Her dark eyes took in Michael’s warmth, the comforting squeeze, her flushed cheeks, but she didn’t say a word. Not now anyway. She would save it for when they were alone and she could grill Cat like a porterhouse.
    She glanced from Cat to Michael and then checked her watch. “I’ll be back,” she said, then took off at warp speed for the back staircase.
    “I like her,” Michael said as the door swung shut after her.
    “I like her, too,” Cat said. “How much did she tell you?”
    “She didn’t tell me anything. She was too busy asking questions.”
    “You didn’t tell her anything, did you?”
    “I don’t know anything.”
    “You know what I’m talking about.”
    “Cat, I’m forty-three years old. I think you can trust me to let you decide who to tell and when to tell them.”
    “I’m being a jerk, aren’t I?”
    “Yeah,” he said, giving her another swift hug, “but you’ll grow out of it.”
    “Quit being so nice to me,” she said, ducking out of his embrace. “I might get used to it.”
    “Cat—”
    “Shh.” She pressed her forefinger to his lips. “Not now, okay?”
    His expression shifted, and she wasn’t quite sure what she saw reflected in his eyes. He grabbed a paper bag from the windowsill and handed her a cold bottle of water and a container of strawberry yogurt.
    “What’s this for?”
    “Hydration and calcium. I’m not going to have you passing out again.”
    “You’re worse than a mother.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Not my mother, of course. Nutrition was never high up on Mimi’s to-do list.”
    The same man who had stared down a mugger near Columbus Circle flinched at her bad joke, and she was instantly contrite.
    “Sorry,” she said. “I should’ve prepared you for reality, but even I didn’t see this coming.”
    He took a chug from his water bottle. “I’m not following.”
    She cut him a look. “In case you haven’t guessed by now, my family isn’t exactly Hallmark material.”
    “And mine is? I don’t think they do Hallmark in the shtetl .”
    “I’m not joking.” She let out a loud, exasperated breath. “Okay. You want the truth? My family is royally screwed up. We wouldn’t know normal if it bit us on the ass. I’d planned to break it to you at our child’s high school graduation, but apparently the universe has other ideas.”
    “You want to tell me about it?”
    “No.” She must have left her internal censor in Manhattan. The truth was flying out of her like bats from a cave. “I absolutely don’t want to