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hood of
    that shiny black Jaguar parked outside.
    “Don’t lie to yourself,” Asa snapped, not begging
    anymore. “I saw you with him when he was a baby, in his
    first few years, before the drugs took over. You love your son, Dee Dee. You just love the drugs more.”
    “Fuck you, Asa.” The words were angry—but she was
    weeping, and damn if Sebastian didn’t feel some pity in him now. She’d had everything—she’d had Jordan, she’d had Asa for sweet God’s sake—and she’d flushed it all away. “Damn you, don’t make this harder!”
    “It should be hard! All you have to do to see your son is clean yourself up!”
    “I can’t. It’s hard. It’s hard and I haven’t had a hit in three goddamned days , and dammit, Asa, for once in your self-righteous life can’t you just give me something! Just give me something! Just give me some fucking cash, and I’ll get out of your life and leave you and your precious son alone!”
    “Mom?”
    Oh fuck. Sebastian and Bella looked up to see Jordan rounding the corner of the kitchen, and there wasn’t a
    damned thing they could do about it.
    “Jordan,” Bella said, standing up and taking his arm,
    “honey, they’re talking….”
    “Mom!” Jordan broke free and tore out the kitchen door
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    to the porch with Bella and Sebastian hot on his heels.
    “Mom!” The boy ran out the door and in between the two
    horrified adults and looked at his mother uncertainly.
    “Hi, kid,” Deirdre said, wiping her face with her hands.
    Sebastian saw that her mascara and dark eyeshadow had all run, and his pity stirred a little faster.
    “Did you come to visit me?” Jordan asked, hope so
    naked on his little face that Sebastian found his fists
    clenching. “Look!” he held out his hand and there was the red ladybug that he and Sebastian had played with for over a week. “It’s like the ones you used to put on your roses. I… I thought of you when we made it.”
    Asa grunted, and Sebastian and Bella both made little
    whimpers, and Sebastian couldn’t remember hoping for
    anything with as much fervency as he hoped that Asa’s ex-wife could pull herself out of her own misery long enough to not be a total bitch to her son.
    “No, honey,” Deirdre said, her voice choked. “No. I’m…
    I’m sorry, baby. Your… your dad’s right. I don’t get to visit you until I’m a better grown-up.” She looked at Asa, who glared miserably back.
    “Damn you, Asa,” she muttered. “You couldn’t have
    made this easy.”
    With that she turned and kissed Jordan’s cheek. “You’re
    a good boy,” she murmured. “And I can’t be your mom right now.”
    And with that Deirdre Bryne stalked off the porch and
    out of their day, leaving a track of destruction in her wake.
    Jordan watched her go, his lower lip thrust out and his
    bony little fingers ripping the red ladybug into tiny pieces.
    They fluttered to the ground, and he turned around and ran Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lan e
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    up to his room.
    Bella said, “I’ll get him,” and Asa said, “Bella, he’s my son….”
    Bella put out a hand to stop him, and took a deep
    breath, and then another, and then smoothed back the loose hair that was hanging in her face. Sebastian had never seen her work so hard to get hold of her emotions.
    “Asa, if I don’t go comfort him, he’s going to think every woman on the planet is his mother, and that would be a real fucking shame.” She wiped her own cheeks with the heels of both hands—without the mascara mess that Deirdre had left behind. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked, her voice
    hoarse. “It was so bad. Why didn’t you tell us?”
    Asa looked away. Sebastian noticed that his face was
    blotchy and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
    “The same reason you have ‘Bella’s day off’,” he
    muttered. “Bella, some shit just hurts too much….”
    She nodded and walked up to him, standing on