Chapter 74

The following morning, Maddie woke up later than usual. She, too, didn't sleep until the wee hours of the morning. She felt bad at how she behaved towards her mother and was really ashamed of herself for failing as soon as she began the journey of reconciliation. Her mom refused to talk to her for the rest of the day. She refused food too until Brody returned from work and begged her to eat.

Maddie quickly took her bath and got dressed, instead of her normal routine of going to the kitchen first to check up on Helen .

On getting to the guest room door, she paused; afraid of how her mom was going to react to her. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door, “mom…mom.”

Her heart skipped a bit when there was no response. Maddie tried twice again before Lauren responded, asking her to come in.

She opened the door and walked in. Her mother was sitting at the reading table, working on the computer..

"Good morning mom,” she greeted tentatively. But Lauren did not answer. She kept on pre