“I have a few ideas, some things I think might drive new customers through the door.”
Carol shook her head, still trying to digest the sudden reversal in her fortunes. “Well, this is certainly unexpected. I never thought anyone would actually want to buy the place. I have no idea how much it might be worth. It’s the property mostly and a little bit of inventory. Can you . . . do you think you’d be able to get a business loan?”
Carol was clearly uncomfortable with having to be so blunt, though it was a perfectly valid question. How to answer was the conundrum. No worries, my dead husband left me millions was likely to raise a few eyebrows, not to mention a whole spate of questions she wasn’t prepared to answer.
“I think it’s doable,” she said carefully. “I have some money saved, and there was a little life insurance. I’m not trying to push you one way or the other, but if you’re really serious about this, why don’t you work up what you think the property and inventory are worth, and we’ll get the ball rolling.”
Carol nodded slowly, her eyes slightly glazed. “All right then. I guess I’d better go call my daughter and tell her to clean out the spare room.”
An hour later, Christy-Lynn wandered into the lobby of the Fife and Feather feeling almost as dazed as Carol had looked when she left the Crooked Spine. Missy appeared with a smile and a plate of freshly baked cookies at the front desk.
“There you are. I was wondering where you’d gotten to. Mama’s taking the boys to the movies tonight, and I was thinking of grabbing some pasta. Interested in—” Missy paused midsentence, cookie plate hovering. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Christy-Lynn shook her head numbly. Was it wise to share her news? Carol might change her mind. Or her daughter could squash the idea of her mother becoming a permanent fixture in her home. The thought brought a pang of anxiety, because at some point during the walk home, she had decided she wanted this very much.
Missy set down the plate and came around to the front of the desk. “Honey, say something. You’re scaring me.”
“It’s fine,” Christy-Lynn said quietly. “In fact, it’s very fine.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’re going to be losing a guest.”
Missy’s expression morphed from concern to disappointment. “You’re leaving Sweetwater?”
Christy-Lynn couldn’t help grinning. “No, but I’ll be needing somewhere permanent to live. I think I just bought a bookstore.”
THIRTEEN
Sweetwater, Virginia
December 31, 2016
The lunch crowd had already descended on the Fickle Pickle, but Christy-Lynn managed to snag a table near the window. She eyed the sky as she sipped her tea and waited for Missy to arrive. The Weather Channel was predicting a whopping three inches of snow, the equivalent of a spring shower for Mainers, but the report had sent locals scurrying for bread and milk.
The timing was unfortunate, almost certain to put a damper on the evening’s festivities. Not that she had any plans of her own. When it came to useless holidays, New Year’s had always been at the top of her list. Something about the forced gaiety and tedious resolutions, the pinning of one’s hopes on a single stroke of the clock, had always seemed stunningly naive.
But not this year.
For the first time in her life, she was actually looking forward to the stroke of midnight and was chomping at the bit to get to work on the store. And soon she’d have a place of her own to live. She’d been thrilled to learn that along with the shop, Carol Boyer was looking to sell her house, a small bungalow built in the 1920s that backed up to Sweetwater Creek. The inn was lovely, and Missy’s friendship had been an unexpected boon, but it was time to put down some roots.
Both deals were set to close in a few weeks, and she hoped to open the store sometime in April, sooner if all went well. She liked the idea of a spring opening. It felt symbolic, a season of growth and renewal. A time for closing old chapters and writing new ones. She glanced at her wrist, at the trio of moon-shaped scars that had been with her for more than twenty years, a permanent part of her backstory. Was a fresh start—one shaped by choice rather than catastrophe—too much to hope for? She didn’t know, but she was willing to find out.
She tucked the thought away, waving as Missy arrived. She looked tired and more than a little frazzled as she unwound her scarf and dropped into the chair opposite Christy-Lynn.
“Sorry I’m late. The dishwasher blew a gasket or a hose or something. I spent my morning coping with a flood. So much for a day off. Oh good, here comes our waitress. I’m famished.” She wagged her brows mischievously. “I’m thinking a tuna sandwich with a big old side of pasta salad. Last chance to carb up before the diet starts tomorrow. Speaking of which, what are you up to tonight? Got anything fun planned?”
Christy-Lynn couldn’t help smiling. Missy’s boundless energy never ceased to amaze her. She was about to answer when the waitress appeared with her order pad and a harried smile. When they were alone again, Missy picked up right where she’d left off.
“So, tonight?”
“No plans. I’ll probably just read or work on the café menu.”
“You should come over and spend it with us. I hated that you turned me down for Christmas at Mama and Daddy’s. No one’s supposed to be alone on Christmas.”
“I told you, I felt funny about horning in on you and your folks. And Christmas has never really been my thing.”
Missy shook her head as if bewildered. “I don’t get it. How can you not like Christmas? Everything’s so beautiful and festive. The music, the decorations, all the yummy food.”
Christy-Lynn kept her eyes averted as she spread her paper napkin in her lap. “Let’s just say the ghost of Christmas past and I have never been terribly close.”
“Sorry,” Missy said quietly. “Sometimes I forget how painful the holidays can be for some people. I didn’t mean to drag up unpleasant memories.”
“Forget it,” Christy-Lynn said, fiddling with her silverware. She could feel Missy studying her, waiting for her to say more, and it made her uncomfortable.
It wasn’t the bike or the Easy-Bake Oven that had never materialized under the tree—not that there had ever been a tree. It was about other things, intangible things like mothers and daughters sipping cocoa and baking cookies, stringing lights and hanging stockings. The moments most people took for granted.
Her own memories were of frozen dinners or boxed mac and cheese, eaten alone in front of the TV while her mother spent the day at the local bar, slinging drinks for tips and then coming home to pass out on the bathroom floor. They didn’t write carols about those kinds of things or put them on Christmas cards either.
“Say you’ll come tonight.” Missy prompted again. “It’ll be fun.”
“Oh, I couldn’t. I—”
“Why couldn’t you? It’s just going to be me and the boys, and they’ll be zonked by nine. We’ll order Chinese from Lotus and get sloppy on chardonnay.” She paused, grinning. “Okay, I’ll get sloppy on chardonnay, and you’ll get buzzed on sweet tea, and we’ll drool over the adorable but sadly unavailable Anderson Cooper. It’ll be fun! Certainly better than working on café menus. And you can finally meet my little guys. Say you’ll come.”
“All right,” she said grudgingly. “But only because you said there’ll be guys there.”
And because it was better than her inevitable New Year’s Eve stroll down memory lane.
FOURTEEN
Monck’s Corner, South Carolina
January 1, 1998
Christy-Lynn sits up, blinking heavily in the flickering blue gloom of the living room. The TV is on, the sound turned down. It’s how she falls asleep most nights, curled up on the faux leather couch, in case her mother comes home in rough shape and needs help getting to bed.
Her eyes are still gritty from sleep. She scrubs at them, then pushes the hair off her face. On the screen, revelers in pa
per hats are swapping kisses amid a shower of confetti and balloons, a replay she realizes, as the scene cuts away to similar shots from around the world. The New Year has arrived. Not that much will change. At least not for the better.
What would it be like, she wonders, to be in the midst of all that excitement—to actually feel like there was something to celebrate? To have the kind of life where there were things to plan instead of things to dread. She’s so very tired of the dread. Of the disappointments and the small daily disasters. Pots left to boil dry on the stove. Cigarette burns on the sheets. Rent money vanishing into thin air. Another lost job. Followed by another. And the excuses. She’s heard them all by now. Always someone else’s fault. It’s not that she’s keeping score. She stopped that a long time ago. But it’s exhausting.
The thought quickly evaporates as a sound seeps in through the front windows, the dull thud of a car door followed by a muffled giggle. Her mother is home and, judging by the sound of things, not alone. Out of habit, her eyes slide to the clock on the stove. Two thirty. She’s early.
A moment later, the front door bangs open, and Charlene Parker tumbles in, smothering another giggle as she hushes her companion. She reels a bit as she stands there, engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke and liquor fumes. In the glare of the TV, she looks like a trashy ghost in her skinny jeans and black tank top, one dingy bra strap drooping down her shoulder.
“Oh . . .” She blinks at Christy-Lynn, as if she’s only just remembered she has a daughter. “Happy New Year, baby!” Her words are thick and slushy, harsh in the quiet. “You remember Jake from the bike shop, right? We’ve been celebrating!”
Christy-Lynn runs her gaze over Jake—tall and lanky with grease-stained jeans and a black leather vest—but can’t muster a memory. Last night it was Randy. Tomorrow it would be someone else. They never hung around long.
“Did you get dinner?” Charlene asks, fumbling with her purse as it threatens to slide off her shoulder.
Christy-Lynn is briefly tempted to ask her mother if she plans to cook but abandons the idea. In her present condition, the snark will only be wasted. “It’s two thirty in the morning, Mama,” she points out wearily. “I ate hours ago.”
“Oh,” Charlene murmurs, more sigh than actual response. Her eyes are wide and vacant in the gloom, unseeing. She’ll crash soon. Hard. And Christy-Lynn doesn’t want Jack or Jake or whatever his name is around when she does.
Resolved, she slides off the couch and crosses the room, taking hold of her mother’s stringy arm. “I’ve got her now,” she tosses at the man in the greasy jeans. “You can go.”
The man’s eyes go flinty, and for a moment, he puffs out his chest. He’s too drunk to hold the pose though and eventually sags against the door frame. “I look like a damn taxi to you? We was gonna ring in the New Year.”
Christy-Lynn fights back a shudder as she glares at him. “In about three minutes, my mother’s going to be on the floor, so unless you plan to hang around for that, you might want to ring in the New Year someplace else.”
She doesn’t care that he’s been drinking and has no business climbing back behind the wheel, or that there’s a very real chance he’ll wrap himself around a tree before he gets home. She just wants him gone and for this night to be over.
“What about you?” he slurs, lumbering a step closer. “I’ve got some stuff in the car. We could—”
“Go,” Christy-Lynn barks before he can get the rest out. “Now. Or I’ll call the police.” She can’t, of course. The phone’s been shut off for months. But she’s hoping he’s too drunk to test the threat. “I mean it. You can leave or deal with the cops.”
He holds his ground for what feels like an eternity, his eyes heavy lidded as he sizes her up, as if trying to decide if she’s worth the trouble. Christy-Lynn glowers back, prepared to belt out a bloodcurdling scream if he so much as flinches in her direction. Beside him, her mother is weaving precariously. She’s going to have to make a choice soon, between letting her mother crumple to the floor and fending off the vest-wearing greaser. And then, mercifully, he wilts.
“Snooty little bitch,” he grumbles as he pushes the door open and nearly falls out onto the stoop. “You tell your mama she owes me. Like I said, I ain’t no taxi.”
Despite years of practice, getting Charlene Parker into bed is never easy. She’s a crier when she comes down, whining and clingy, begging for forgiveness between sloppy sobs. But there’s always a moment between pleading and oblivion when she becomes quiet, almost docile. This is the window Christy-Lynn waits for. She doesn’t bother with her clothes, just drags off her boots and pulls up the covers, then flips on the lamp and moves the trash can closer to the bed—just in case.
She’s about to turn away when she notices the vacant hollow at the base of her mother’s throat. Her hand creeps to the half-heart pendant at her own throat. “Mama . . . where’s your necklace?”
There’s no answer, no acknowledgment of any kind. Christy-Lynn touches her shoulder then gives it a shake. “Mama?”
Charlene’s eyes flutter open briefly, unfocused as they swim about the room.
“What happened to your necklace?” Christy-Lynn’s voice is harsher now, a sick kind of knowing already taking root.
“Easy Street . . . Coin . . . something.” The words ooze out thick and slurred, but for Christy-Lynn, they’re clear enough.
“You pawned your half of our necklace?”
“Owed Micah . . .” She lifts a hand in the air, flapping it vaguely, then lets it drop back to the bed like a felled bird. “He wouldn’t . . .” The words fall away, but Christy-Lynn doesn’t need to hear anymore. He wouldn’t let her have any more of whatever it was she was into these days. That’s what she was too drunk or too high to say.
“Oh, Mama . . .”
Charlene’s eyes open again, glassy and dilated. She yawns, head lolling as she reaches for Christy-Lynn’s arm, patting it as if it were a puppy. “Happy New Year, baby.”
Something hot and bitter rises up in Christy-Lynn’s throat as she unfastens her own necklace. She stares at it, coiled in her palm, tarnished after nearly three years of wear. Her mother’s words echo in her head, as clear as the day she had spoken them. We’ll never take them off. Whatever happens—no matter how bad things get—we’ll always have each other.
Christy-Lynn swallows a sob. The necklace slips out of her hand with surprising ease, slithering through her fingers and into the wastebasket. She has kept her part of their pact, but it doesn’t matter. Half a heart isn’t good for anything.
FIFTEEN
Sweetwater, Virginia
December 31, 2016
Missy’s house was located behind the inn, a quaint clapboard cottage bordered on three sides by a tidy boxwood hedge. The snow had begun to fall by the time Christy-Lynn arrived, the large wet flakes already clinging to the slate-paved path to the front porch.
Missy pulled back the door with a grin on her face and a wineglass in her hand. “Come on in and kick off your shoes. Just watch your step. Nathan’s got LEGOs all over the floor. The place is basically a minefield. Oh, and don’t get too close to the tree. I put it up Thanksgiving Day so it’s a bit of a fire hazard at this point.”
Christy-Lynn followed her to the kitchen. Missy topped off her wineglass and reached for a handful of cheese puffs from an enormous bag on the counter. “What can I get you to drink? We’ve got lemonade, tea, apple juice, root beer, or Sprite. Oh, and wine, if you’ve taken up drinking since lunch.”
“Sprite works.”
Missy shoved the bag of cheese puffs in Christy-Lynn’s direction then reached into the fridge for a soda. “Help yourself. It’s part of our New Year’s tradition—junk food and Chinese. The menu for Lotus is on the counter if you want to look it over. I’m hooked on their lo mein, and the boys always do shrimp fried rice.”
Christy-Lynn was scanning the menu, trying to decide between the pepper steak and cashew chicken, when the back door crashed open an
d a pair of pink-cheeked boys in coats and scarves barreled into the kitchen, making a beeline for the refrigerator.
Missy turned to face them, hands on hips. “Hey, hey, you two. No running in the house. And before you touch anything, hang up your coats and go get cleaned up. But first say hello to our company.”
The pair turned in unison, the younger of the two staring with wide blue eyes, the older grinning handsomely, a space where one of his incisors used to be.
“This is Christian,” Missy said, ruffling the taller boy’s strawberry-blond head. “And the little squirt with the orange lips and fingers is Nathan. I’ll give you three guesses who voted for the cheese puffs. Guys, this is Christy-Lynn. She’s going to hang with us tonight for New Year’s.”
“Hello,” Christy-Lynn said tentatively, hating the awkwardness she always felt when there were children around. She never knew what to say or how to act, and she wondered if it showed with Missy’s boys.
“Do you have a hat?” Nathan asked, scrunching one eye up at her.
Christy-Lynn blinked down at him. “A hat?”
“He means a paper hat,” Missy whispered. “For New Year’s.” She rolled her eyes balefully. “We have horns and noisemakers too. We put them on after dinner since the boys are usually out by midnight.”
Christy-Lynn looked at Nathan gravely. “I’m afraid I don’t have a hat. Is it mandatory?”
Nathan frowned, clearly baffled by the word mandatory. Missy stepped in. “Don’t worry, baby. Mama has extra hats. Now the two of you go get scrubbed while I order dinner.”
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