And here's the exciting conclusion. Enjoy!

The walk was brief, shorter even than Callie was expecting. She had known that Donald moved, but she hadn't realized how close it had been to Daphne's place. She thought about all the times she'd come this way to hang out and how she might have run into Donald at any moment. She was glad she hadn't.

The neighborhood wasn't quite deserted. Cars drove by her, mostly full of teenagers on their way to parties and dates. She felt underdressed. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself even though she wasn't cold. Somehow, walking to Donald's, she just wanted to feel protected.

She checked the address she'd written down twice before she rang the doorbell. The porch light was on, which she took as a good sign, but the place was rundown. When she heard that he moved she'd assumed it was to somewhere nicer, but it didn't appear that had been the case. She wondered if he'd been evicted.

It took a while for anyone to answer. She had just started to feel a flood of disappointment as she accepted he wasn't home, when she started to hear a distinct shuffle coming from inside. A moment later the door swung open and there he stood. Shirtless, two days worth of graying beard on his chin, and the distinct smell of alcohol lingering in the air around him.

"Callie." He said. His voice was hollow. Callie wanted to leave, but she knew she couldn't. "What are you doing here?" How could he look so much older than the last time she'd seen him?

"I… um…" But before she could say anything, a voice called from another room.

"Who is it?"

Donald looked at Callie, embarrassed or guilty, she couldn't tell. Maybe both. She felt her eyes grow wide as a young woman with only a sheet wrapped around her emerged from the bowels of the house.

"Donny?" The woman asked. "Who's this."

"I'm Callie." She told the woman, hoping it would be enough, but it wasn't. The woman tossed a confused look at Donald and he rubbed a hand over his balding head.

"She's my daughter." Donald offered, but the word immediately rang wrong in Callie's head.

"Sort of." Callie added, but she didn't know what else to call their relationship. He wasn't her biological father and he didn't have any parental rights over her. What was he? And yet, even in the state he was in, the first word that came to her mind when she looked at him was 'dad.'

"How is she sort of your daughter?" The woman asked, giggling drunkenly. Callie hated her. She didn't know anything about her but she hated her more than she'd hated almost anyone.

"Hey, why don't you get dressed and take off, Bri."

"Okay." The woman replied. Her tone was mocking. She planted a long, lingering kiss on Donald and he didn't pull back from it. Callie wanted to run to them and tear them apart.

She disappeared inside the back room and Callie and Donald remained where they were. Callie didn't want to go inside while she was still in there. The silence hung heavy in the doorway for the minute it took Bri to throw her skimpy outfit back on and leave with another, even longer, parting kiss.

"So you want to come in?" Donald asked once she was out of sight.

Truthfully Callie didn't, but it seemed too late to back down. Not once she'd made her father's 'friend' leave.

"So." Callie said as she made her way inside and sat down on the moth-eaten sofa. "Bri?" She couldn't keep the mocking tone out of her voice.

Donald sat on an easy chair as far across the room as he could. "I'm a man, Callie. I get lonely."

"Yeah, I just would have thought you'd go for someone a little closer to your age than mine."

"So what?" Callie could hear the anger growing in Donald's voice. "You came over here just to judge me?"

Callie wiped the smirk from her face. He was angry. And he'd been drinking.

"I actually came to talk about mom."

That seemed to shut him up. He gaped at her for a moment before he responded. "Jesus, Callie. You came all the way over here to talk about your mother?"

"I just keep feeling like this isn't what she would have wanted. Me and Jude living with strangers and you drinking yourself to death and shacking up with some floozy who looks like she could still be in braces." Callie could feel her voice rising but she couldn't help it. She was mad.

"She's 24." He shot back. "And I let you kids go because that's what you said you wanted. It's not my fault if you changed your mind."

"I didn't change my mind, I just keep wondering if that's really what she would have wanted us to—"

Donald rose to his feet, shaking. "She would have wanted to not be dead!" Donald shouted. Callie stared at him, stunned. "She would have wanted to not get in that car with me so she could still be here with you. She would have wanted to watch you grow up and kiss you good night and ground you and love you and cry at your goddamn graduation." His voice fell to a quivering whisper. Callie felt a tear slide unbidden down her cheek. "That's what she would have wanted. So don't waste your time trying to make a dead woman happy."

Callie tried to stay under control. This wasn't how any of this was supposed to go.

"Dad, I-"

He interrupted before she'd even figured out what she was going to say. "But I'm not your dad. Am I?" Callie felt the tightness in her chest grow. Her breath was coming in painful gasps. "I wanted to be, Cal." He fell back onto the easy chair and wrapped a hand around the Bud Light that was sitting on the table beside him. "I would have been. But you didn't want me. So I let you go." He shook his head. Callie didn't think she'd ever seen someone look so defeated. "I'm so sorry." The words were barely a whisper. Callie almost wondered if she'd imagined them.

"I should go." She stuttered, and headed for the door.

"I'd give you a ride." He called out as she left. "But, you know, I've been drinking."

Callie burst out the door, relieved to feel the crisp night air hit her lungs. She walked four blocks as fast as she could before she let herself stop. How had he turned into that? She thought about the crisp, absentee businessman who'd once been her father. If her ten-year-old self had met that Donald she wouldn't have even recognized him.

She glanced down at her phone. Fifteen minutes. All of that had only taken fifteen minutes.

She didn't head back to Daphne's right away. She had plenty of time and she needed to clear her head. The night was calm and cool and she relished the anonymity of the darkness. She thought she'd go down to the water, but halfway there she noticed a bus stop headed uptown. She paused as a sudden thought entered her head. She glance back down at her phone. She still had forty minutes left. That would be enough time. Almost. Just.

The bus came moments later, which was lucky. She found a seat at the back. The florescent lights shone harshly on a pair of pierced teenagers making out and a man who looked far too old to be out so late on a Friday night. None of them glanced at Callie.

She could hardly sit still. She leaned her head against the side and bounced one of her legs. They were almost there.

When her stop came, Callie sprang to her feel and shot out the door. She charged up the street. There were no partying teens in this neighborhood. It was silent and deserted. As she entered the park the trees seemed to close in around her, but not in an intimidating way. It was though they were escorting her, protecting her.

The gate was locked so she had to climb the fence. She wondered briefly what would happen if she got caught. Was trespassing a felony? She pictured Stef and Lena's faces if the cops escorted her home. But as she hopped down on the other side, no one came. She was entirely alone.

She took the winding path between the stones. She'd only come this way a few times before, and it had been several years ago, but she remembered it. Did anyone forget where their mom was buried?

Callie stopped once she drew within sight of the headstone. For a moment she had the thought that she should be scared. Alone in a graveyard at night? That was supposed to be spooky, wasn't it? But all she felt was sad and a little tired. Maybe once you'd met monsters in real life the imaginary ones didn't seem so bad anymore.

She crept forward, as though she was trying not to wake someone who was sleeping. Once she got close enough to read the name, Colleen Jacob, she sat down with her legs crossed and just looked at it for a while. Somewhere below her were those arms that had once held her, those lips that had once kissed her, those hands that held her's while they crossed the street. What did they look like now? How long did it take for a person to become a skeleton?

She shook the thought away. She didn't have much time. She took a deep breath, stealing herself for what she wanted to do.

"Mom?" She asked. Her voice sounded quiet and childish in her ears. "I… It's Callie."

The silence around her remained undisturbed. She pressed on.

"I came to see you because…" Her voice started to choke but she couldn't stop. "I've really been screwing up." She took another rattling breath. "I know you're not here but I just… is this what I'm supposed to do, mom? Is it okay if I let dad go?" And finally she arrived at the question that was truly at the root of it, the question that had been weighing on her heart.

"Am I allowed to be happy?"

She waited. She didn't know what she was expecting. A gust of wind, maybe? A voice to tell her it was okay for her to move on with her life and it didn't mean she loved her mother any less? But whatever she had been hoping for, she didn't get it. The air remained still, the graveyard calm and quiet.

And sitting in that peaceful place, she had a moment of clarity. Her mother wasn't there. Her mother wasn't some body decomposing in the ground. It was like Stef had told her, Colleen was inside of Callie. And Callie never had to feel guilty about moving on with her life because, in a way, her life was a tribute to her mother. And if she threw that away, that's when her mother would truly be gone.

As though something was guiding her hand, Callie felt herself unclasp her necklace. She held it out in front of her and looked at it as though she was seeing it for the first time. What if the necklace wasn't tying her to her mother's memory? What if it was binding her to an image of the past that no longer existed? What if it was keeping her from moving forward?

She lay the metal chain on the Earth at the base of the headstone. Immediately she felt as though a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. This was right.

"I love you." She whispered. This time a faint gust of wind found its way to her. Maybe it was her mother, maybe it wasn't, but either way it felt like soft lips pressing against her cheek. She stood up, and walked back to the bus stop.

She made it back to Daphne's right on time.

"I was getting worried about you. How'd it go? Did you get what you needed?"

"You know, I think I did."

The next night during dinner, she noticed Jude looking at her funny. Finally he leaned over and whispered, "You're not wearing mom's necklace. Did you lose it again?"

Callie felt a small smile creep over her face. "No, buddy." She told him. "I gave it back."