As Jamie lay alone in bed, not knowing that his mother had just been killed while driving drunk, he's filled with disturbing thoughts. The last words his mother had said to him before going out were, "I've given you the last six years of my life, and for what? To always be running from one town to another? Never having a life of my own just so you could live?" And then in a drunken slur she had added, "If I had a lick of sense I'd have let old Ernie do what he wanted."

Why had his mother said she had given him the last six years of her life when he was twelve years old? Why did she always...