Far From Maddy by C. C. Saint-Clair

As a child, Jo tried to survive, the best way she could, her mother’s illness, alcoholism and suicide; her father’s emotional absence; and the loss of her much older sister when that sibling left home. As a young woman, Jo’s interactions with Maddy, despite their loving relationship, trigger the fear of being emotionally dependent on her lover and of being vulnerable to the potential loss inherent in an intimate relationship. It is that fear that, subsequently, leads to her ‘disappearance’.