A Mother's Homecoming. Tanya Michaels

had placed an order for chicken-fried steak and a side of mashed potatoes. Although the menus had been redesigned, she was thrilled to see all her favorite dishes still remained.

      The platinum-haired waitress—Helen, according to the unevenly spaced letters on a white plastic rectangle—bobbed her head in acknowledgment of Pam’s order. “I’ll be right back with your glass of water, hon.”

      “Wait.” Pam surprised herself with a burst of curiosity. “The original owner, Kat McAdams? Does she still run the place?” Pam had no real sense of the proprietor’s age. When Pam was a teenager, Kat had seemed ancient, but anyone over twenty-five had seemed that way. Now that Pam thought about it, she doubted Kat had been anywhere old enough for granny status back then.

      Helen narrowed her hazel eyes, assessing. “You from around here?”

      “A long time ago, yeah.”

      “Then you don’t know about the stroke? Kat recovered, but the doctors told her she had to slow down. She has a room over at Magnolia Hills Senior Community, but she’s in here at least once a week to make sure everything’s shipshape. She sold part ownership to Davy Lowe, but he didn’t come in to oversee dinner shift tonight because his champion beagle is supposed to have her pups.”

      “Thank you.” Pam had cut all ties with Mimosa the night she left; the relatively impersonal inquiry about Kat McAdams was a low-risk way of easing back into her past life. It was unexpectedly reassuring to know that Granny K was alive and kicking and still looking out for her diner.

      Helen moved to the next table, greeting a young couple and their boisterous toddler, and Pam surveyed the diner. The setup hadn’t changed much over the years, although the color scheme—formerly red and white—had been altered to a deep green and softer ivory. Additional booths had been installed toward the back where there had once been a jukebox and a coin-operated air-hockey table. During her perusal of the surroundings, Pam noticed that a young woman—maybe early twenties—was staring at her. Pam couldn’t understand why. The stranger seemed too young to be anyone from Pam’s past. And too old to be Faith.

      Swallowing, Pam pushed away the thought. If she kept picking at emotional scabs, she would never heal.

      Suddenly she realized that the other woman had stood and she looked as if she were coming this way. Crap, for all Pam knew, Mae had remarried and this girl was her stepsister. But before the stranger had taken two steps, another woman ducked into Pam’s line of sight and the twentysomething altered course.

      “Why, Pamela Jo, that is you,” a tiny redhead drawled.

      Pam tensed, feeling ridiculously vulnerable without her baseball cap and no food yet to occupy her attention or make her look busy. Luckily the woman already cheerfully seating herself on the other side of the table seemed friendly. She wore a sleeveless floral dress and barely topped five feet—not exactly the intimidating type. If she managed to break a hundred pounds, it would be because the heavy cloud of auburn framing her face tipped her over the edge. Pam forced her expression into an answering smile.

      “Yep. It’s me. But I just go by Pam now.”

      The woman winked, conspiratorial. “Now that we’re all grown up, hmm? Well, I’m still Violet, same as I ever was.”

      Violet Keithley. Pam blinked, reacclimating to yet another piece of her past rising up to meet her. “Sure, I remember you.” They’d been in different grades, not close at all, but Violet had been a member of church choir with her. Backup soprano, not one of the frequent soloists like Pam.

      “It’s so nice to see you again.” Violet shook her head, setting the voluminous mass in motion. “I always expected I’d turn on the radio one day and hear your voice.”

      “Yeah, well … So are you here tonight with your family? Husband, kids?” Pam was more than willing to coo appreciatively over wallet-sized pictures of Violet’s children if it meant not having to talk about herself.

      “Oh, no.” Violet tittered. “Haven’t found the right guy to make an honest woman of me yet. My sister Cora got married last June and told me I should take up fishing to meet men. That’s how she did it.”

      At the image of ultrapetite Violet wrestling a bass out of the Yazoo River, Pam fought a grin.

      “I was going to meet one of my friends for dinner,” Violet continued, “but she called when I was already halfway here to say her little boy is feeling funny. He doesn’t usually mind staying with his daddy, but you know how it is. Everyone wants Mama when they’re sick.”

       Not everyone.

      Almost as soon as Pam formed the sardonic thought—born more of habit than heat—she reconsidered. Alcoholism was an illness and, as part of her attempted recovery, here she was seeking Mae.

      The waitress returned with two glasses of water and offered a menu to Violet, who glanced questioningly across the table. Pam shrugged. Violet was harmless enough and no doubt could fill in some of the blanks about life in Mimosa since Pam’s departure.

      “You mentioned mothers,” Pam said awkwardly once the waitress had gone with Violet’s order. “Do you, um, remember mine?” Colorful at best and a drunken home-wrecker at worst, Mae was nothing if not memorable. Pam felt the best way to bring the woman into conversation was slowly. No telling how many townsfolk had legitimate axes to grind.

      “Mae Wilson. Of course.” Surprisingly Violet’s expression softened. “My condolences on her passing.”

      “Passing?” The clatter of the diner fell away, drowned out by the pounding in Pam’s ears. Although she’d earlier allowed the snarky thought about Mae breaking her neck inside her house—which now struck her as in incredibly poor taste—she hadn’t for a second believed it. Mae had once totaled a boyfriend’s car and walked away without a scratch on her.

      Besides, this was her mother. Wasn’t there some sort of psychic umbilical cord? The woman who had brought her into this world and raised her had died. Ceased to exist. Wouldn’t Pam have experienced at least a minor twinge?

       Maybe you were too wasted to notice the twinge.

      Violet pressed a hand to her heart, and Pam lip-read her words more than heard them. “You didn’t know? My God. I’m so sorry. I thought …”

      Blindly, Pam grabbed the glass in front of her and instinctively tossed some of its contents down her throat. Instead of the burn of whiskey she still half expected on some base, cellular level, there was only tepid water. It took her a moment to reorient.

      Right, she didn’t drink whiskey anymore.

      And Mae Danvers Wilson wasn’t alive anymore.

       I’m too late.

      Perhaps it was hypocritical to feel devastated by the loss of a mother she’d barely known even when they shared a house. Having not interacted with Mae in years, it was silly to think that not doing so now would truly affect her day-to-day life. But to drive all this way, to have rehearsed and rehashed and wondered for hundreds of miles how her olive branch would be received …

      “Wh-what happened?” Pam’s question seemed to echo from a distance.

      “I heard liver failure.” Violet ducked her gaze. “I’m so sorry, Pam. I knew you didn’t make it back in time for the funeral, but … Earlier this summer your aunt and uncle hired someone to find you. I thought maybe that’s what brought you to town.”

      “My aunt and uncle.” Pam swallowed. “They were going to be my next stop after dinner.”

      “The Calberts?” Violet was practically trembling with discomfort, her gaze darting around as if she wished she could flee. “Oh, honey, they’re not home. Your aunt was gone for a long weekend, one of those craft shows she does in the next county. I know because Cora’s been watering all their outside plants while … Listen to me prattling on. I’m so—”

      “No,