A Mother's Homecoming. Tanya Michaels

nickname followed him all the way to graduation anyway. Change was darn near impossible in sleepy, small towns.

      She remembered the day at lunch when he’d asked her to junior prom, his expression sheepish.

      “It’s not like I expect you to say yes—the whole school knows you’ll go with Nick—but Tully bet me five bucks I wouldn’t have the guts to ask.” He’d grinned boyishly. “And I could use the five bucks.”

      Of course, the whole school had known she would be at the dance with Nick. She and Nick Shepard had been inseparable back then. If she wanted to, even all these years later, she could easily recall the exact timbre of his laugh, the scent of his cologne lingering on the lettered jacket she’d so often worn. Her stomach clenched and she shoved away the encroaching memories.

       Thank God he lives in North Carolina.

      Facing her mother would be unpleasant, but Pam had promised herself and her sponsor, Annabel, that she would go through with it. If she’d thought there was a risk of seeing Nick Shepard, however, Pam never would have willingly set foot in the state of Mississippi. And not just for her own self-preservation, but for Nick’s as well. Gwendolyn Shepard’s accusation echoed in her mind. Don’t you think you’ve done my son enough damage?

      Pam grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler against the far wall and took it to the register. Her stomach growled when she passed a display of candy bars and potato chips, but snacks were a luxury item. Maybe the possibility of food at Mae’s house would keep her motivated to finish her journey.

      Eyes down, she slid her cash across the counter to Travis. “Put whatever’s left after the water on pump two, please.”

      “Sure th—” At his abrupt halt, she reflexively raised her gaze, immediately wishing she hadn’t.

      His dark eyes widened.

      Oh, no. She wasn’t naive enough to think she could be in her hometown without people finding out, people recognizing her, but she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Annabel was wrong, I’m not ready.

      “Uh, sure thing,” Travis finally said. He glanced out the window to where her heap sat, lowering the property value just by being there.

      “Thanks.” She turned to go. With concerted effort, she kept from sprinting like some overage Ole Miss student trying out for the Rebel’s track and field team. After all, the one thing she’d learned in the last twelve and a half years was that she couldn’t outrun her past—not at any speed.

      Behind her, Travis called, “You have a nice day, Pamela Jo.”

       Too late.

      IT WASN’T THAT YOU couldn’t go home again, Pam thought as her car bounced in the exact same pothole that used to make Nick’s vintage Mustang stutter after their dates. You just have to be crazy or desperate to do it. In her case, both.

      But maybe people with closer-knit families viewed revisiting their roots in a different light.

      She turned onto the long and winding gravel driveway. The Wilson mailbox was the same faded, ugly mustard yellow. An enduring copse of trees still blocked the view of the house from the road. However, the weeping willow that had once been at the front of the wild and unruly yard was gone.

      Mae’s 1980 LTD Crown Victoria was parked in the carport attached to the brick two-bedroom home; the rusted vehicle clearly hadn’t been roadworthy in some time. Pam leaned forward, staring through her windshield. The car wasn’t the only thing in a state of disrepair. Instead of curtains or the familiar living room suite visible through the house’s grimy windows, there were large flat boards blocking further view. The concrete slab generously called a front porch had cracked, and flower-topped weeds flourished in the fissures. Several roof shingles had fallen atop neglected shrubs, and another hung precariously, as if it were barely holding on and planned to give up the ghost at any minute.

      Pam knew the feeling.

      She parked the car, sagging back against her seat. Defeat and relief swirled in a bitter cocktail. Mae didn’t live here.

      No one lived here. It didn’t appear as though the house had been sold, what with the Victoria parked in its habitual spot. If not for the deliberately boarded windows, she might have worried Mae had simply slipped and broken her fool neck with no one the wiser. Pam experienced a rare twinge of regret that she and her mother hadn’t kept up some sort of communication over the years … Christmas greetings, postcards, hate mail with a return address.

      Had her mother moved into the nursing home in Mimosa? Surely not. Although the woman’s lifestyle had probably aged her prematurely, she was only in her fifties. Had she perhaps moved in with her pursed-lip, disapproving older sister Aunt Julia? Pam shuddered at what that household would be like. Poor Uncle Ed.

      Pam opened her car door, though she wasn’t sure why she felt the need for a closer look at her childhood home. She didn’t have a key. Breaking in to the tiny residence would be relatively simple but also relatively pointless. She doubted she’d find more than spiders and field mice. Why waste time here when she should be tracking down Mae? As much as the thought of talking to her mother ripped at the lining of Pam’s stomach, that’s what she had come all this way to do.

      During a discussion with Annabel about making amends, she’d groused in a moment of self-pity that it was too bad Mae had never joined the program because there was a woman with some amends to make. No-nonsense Annabel had pointed out in her wry, get-a-clue way that hating Mae was damaging Pam far more than her estranged mother.

      Pam had decided that if she couldn’t get forgiveness from the people she’d hurt—Nick’s face flashed in her mind—the next best thing she could do was to forgive the person who’d hurt her. Maybe once Pam made peace with her mother, she could truly move forward. Because right now, Pam’s life was as much in shambles as this pitiful little house.

      Kicking a rock out of her path, she stepped closer. The room on the corner closest to her was the kitchen. The majority of meals in Pam’s childhood had consisted of cereal or microwaved entrées. Every once in a great while Mae had cooked up something fantastic, mostly to impress new boyfriends when she was sober enough to care. There had been one guy, a truck driver, who’d returned to them again and again for an entire winter. He’d taught Pam how to play guitar. It had been one of the happiest seasons of her life. She had fond memories of strumming in the living room and losing herself in the discovery of new chords.

      Bittersweet were the later memories of that same living room when she and Nick, juniors in high school, had lost their virginity together on the couch. They’d been kids, completely inept at what they were doing. Yet how many times in the years since had she wished she could once again sink into his embrace, those arms made muscular by football practices, and made safe by his love?

      According to Nick’s mother—furious that Pam had the gall to phone after all these years, even if it was only to get contact information for an apology—Nick was happily remarried and raising his daughter in North Carolina. Our daughter. Pam’s chest squeezed so tightly she couldn’t breathe. Finally a harsh sob grated out, opening up her airway and allowing her to inhale in jagged, hiccupy breaths.

      The sound startled a group of grackle in the tree above her. She couldn’t help envying their escape as they took to the air. One stubborn bird maintained its perch, narrowing its beady black eyes as if to challenge, Now what?

      Excellent question.

      PAM HAD BEEN ON THE WAY to Aunt Julia and Uncle Ed’s when her car overheated. As proof that there was indeed a God, the car sputtered to a stop right across the street from Granny K’s Kitchen. Pam wondered if Granny K’s, a venerable town institution, still served the best chicken-fried steak known to man.

      Technically she shouldn’t be splurging on dinner or she’d be broke by the end of the week. Then again, she was supposed to be taking life one day at a time. Besides, Annabel had admonished more than once that Pam was “damn near skeletal.”