she even still have my number? It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d thrown my card away. Just like she’d thrown away my letters.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“What?”
Logan was in front of me, arms crossed, wearing a stormy expression. “Where have you been?”
“I went for a drive.”
After leaving Nora with Joaquin, I couldn’t bear the idea of being around anyone. I needed to be alone and think and the only way I had ever been able to clear my head was with a drive. I’d headed west with little idea of where I was going, my mind replaying my recent conversations with Nora and trying to process what it meant that she hadn’t read my letters. All this time, I thought her silence had been a rejection of me. It had, but not in the way I thought. My pleas for her forgiveness, the plans I suggested so we could be together, the explanation for my seduction of Charlie—she knew none of it. I drove and drove, mourning the missed chances, and daring to dream of a future which would only be possible if I destroyed the life I knew.
“You’ve been driving for over three hours?”
“What?”
“Joaquin said you left the Char-Grill about two.”
I opened a kitchen drawer. “Would you like to test me?”
“No, Mom,” Logan said, reddening.
I closed the door with a snap. “I haven’t been drinking and driving.” I walked back to my car, pulled the forgotten bags out of the back seat and returned to the kitchen. “Dinner. Cooper’s Barbecue. Llano, Texas. Two-hour round trip.”
Logan looked slightly chagrined. “I was worried about you. You didn’t return my texts. ‘Find My iPhone’ didn’t work.”
I grasped Logan by the shoulders and pulled her into a fierce hug, my frustration, and anger at my daughter’s real, and valid, concerns, leaking out of me. “I’m sorry. I turned my phone off. I should have let you or Dad know what I was doing.”
“You always want me to be on call, and you don’t even do it.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to worry about me. About all of it.” I held her at arm’s length. “I’m not drinking again, I promise. The beer at Nora’s...it was a blip.”
“You’ve had blips before.”
“Logan, I swear to God I’m not drinking again. I made a promise to you and Dad, and I intend to keep it.”
“Have you been to a meeting lately?”
“No, but I will. I promise.”
She inhaled and nodded. I pulled her close again and hugged her, felt her thin arms encircle my waist. I wanted to absorb her into my being, to protect her from everything—love and hate, life and death, the truth and lies of my past.
“You’re squeezing me to death, Mom.”
“Sorry.” I released her and turned away before she could see my tears.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Lo. I’m fine.”
“You’re definitely not fine. Half the time you’re on the verge of tears and the other half you’re glowing like a candle and the other half your snapping our heads off.” She looked up. “Okay, those are thirds.”
I pulled the grease-stained brown paper packages from the plastic bags. “You’ve pretty much summed up every working mother I know.”
“This is different.”
One by one, I announced the contents of the bag. “Ribs for me, burnt ends for Dad and smoked turkey for you.”
“Pecan cobbler?”
I tilted my head. “What’s Cooper’s without pecan cobbler for dessert?”
“I knew there was something I liked about you,” Logan said with a grin.
I opened the pint containers of beans and potato salad while Logan pulled two plates from the cabinet. “Oh, thanks, honey, but I’ll eat later. I ate a burger at Mel’s.”
I turned my phone back on and waited—wondered, hoped, feared.
“You never turn your phone off,” Logan said.
Missed messages from Logan, work and Charlie popped up one after the other. Disappointment the size of Enchanted Rock settled into my stomach.
“Mom.”
I looked up. “Hmm?”
“Is it Nora?”
I swallowed. “What?”
“Stop saying what.”
“Stop asking me questions.”
“Why don’t you listen to me for a change?”
I put my phone face down on the counter. “I’m listening.”
“Are you acting so weird because Nora’s back in town?”
“Yes.”
Logan’s head jerked back a little, and her eyes widened. The microwave beeped. “I didn’t think you’d admit it.”
I chuckled. “Neither did I.” I stared at my red fingernails and drummed them on the granite countertop. “I didn’t realize how much I missed her until I saw her again.”
“Joaquin said y’all fought today?”
“It wasn’t a fight.”
“He said it was pretty tense.”
“Not really. Not as much as it should have been with years of