Chapter One
Broken Bayou, Louisiana
My hand hovers over the inside car-door handle but refuses to open it.
Through my windshield, I study a pale brick building whose dirty front window announces boudin is on sale.
Its torn awning flaps in the breeze, and above it, chipped cornflower blue letters read SA K AND SAVE FOOD STORE.
You’d think after twenty years they’d have replaced the c in the word sack, but I guess it sounds the same, so why bother?
I wonder if Mr. Bendel is still behind the register inside.
If the smell of Virginia Slims still permeates every wall.
If the back door still leads to the alley where one could easily escape when shoplifting.
Yesterday, as the incessant notifications started on my phone, this trip seemed like a good idea.
Now, though, after sneaking out of my Fort Worth high-rise like a thief, carrying a duffel bag full of pencil skirts and blouses way too formal for this sleepy little bayou town, I seem to have lost my momentum.
Blistering afternoon sun blasts through the windshield. I crank up the AC.
My eyes dart to the large coffee thermos in the seat next to me and, propped beside it, the letter with its creamy paper and crisp typed words from the law office of LaSalle, LaSalle, and Landry.
Wings flutter in my chest. I stared at that letter for weeks, ever since my mother handed it to me.
Throwing it away and digging it out of the trash several times.
A letter notifying us some of my mother’s things were found in the attic of my great-aunts’ old house, Shadow Bluff.
Things we may want to come get. Things left behind years ago. Forgotten. On purpose.
Then that television interview happened, and responding to the letter seemed like a better option than staying in Fort Worth. I don’t want to take a chance that a certain object in that attic falls into the wrong hands.
I kill the engine. I’m going in. I’ll get what I need for the few days I’m here: some snacks, a wheelbarrow full of Community Coffee, maybe some wine.
That’s it. Except that won’t be it. Not here.
Someone will remember me. Once I walk in there, the whole town will know Krystal Lynn Watters’s eldest daughter is back, and she may have fancy clothes and be a big deal back in Texas, but in Louisiana, she’s still the sad, messy-haired little girl who always tried to return everything her mama stole, clutching her little sister’s hand like she might float away.
People in small towns don’t forget. They also ask questions.
Questions like, Why’d you stop visiting Broken Bayou?
Why didn’t you come to your great-aunts’ funerals?
Why’d y’all skip town so fast that last summer you were here?
I take a deep breath and open the car door.
The heat of a thousand suns smacks into me.
Hotter than Texas. Despite the ground looking painfully dry, the air is wet with humidity.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who live down here have adapted by growing gills.
The air smells of the salty gulf, of my past. Even though I’ve only crossed one state line, I feel like I need a passport to be here.
My skin tingles under my long sleeves. Sweat rolls down my back.
A tailored suit with a jacket may not have been the best clothing choice for this .
. . errand. But this is the wardrobe I’ve grown accustomed to.
The complete opposite of Krystal Lynn’s tube tops, bell-bottomed jeans, and bright plastic bangles.
I saw what that wardrobe would get you and hauled ass in the opposite direction.
My cell dings as I slam the car door shut. Somewhere on the long bridge over the Atchafalaya Basin, I thought it’d be a good idea to turn my ringer back on. Part punishment for my stupidity, part motivation to keep driving.
It dings again. And again. Finally, I look.
New notifications. Trending now: #1 Entertainment, Dr. Willa Watters, Fort Worth Live, hashtag honestly hot.
A reality TV star from Dallas had retweeted the clip and tagged me, hashtag put me on your couch.
A sour taste fills my mouth. But comments like that will wither on the vine soon enough.
It’s the comments about my emotional stability that have the acid in my stomach building.
Dropping my cell in my tote, I teeter across the crumbling parking lot on my heels.
I earned a full ride at Baylor, trudged through five years of grad school, and defended a dissertation on spectrum children being integrated into a traditional school setting.
I wrote a damn book. I helm a successful podcast, for God’s sake.
And now I’m being reduced to entertainment and hashtags on social media while working up the courage to shop in a Sack and Save.
I stop just as I’m about to open the store’s glass door.
Something catches my eye, parked on the far end of the lot.
My hand slips off the door handle. My pulse quickens.
A white news van, off by itself. It’s not for you, I tell myself as I rub my sweaty palm on my jacket. Stay focused. In and out. No big deal.
As Krystal Lynn would say, time to cowgirl up.
Inside the store, I keep my head down, grab a cart, and start heading for the closest aisle.
“Well, forevermore, look what the cat dragged in.”
Four seconds through the front door, and a woman in a denim tent of a dress and a gray permed head works her way from behind the checkout counter. That must be a record.
Maybe I should have skipped this stop and driven straight to Shadow Bluff.
“Willamena Pearl,” the woman says.
Hearing my full name always makes me cringe. I better live to ninety so I can grow into it.
She wraps her meaty arms around me, then pulls back as if she’s been waiting on me and I’ve finally shown up. I don’t move.
“I mean Dr. Willa, now.” She beams; then her smile falters. “Sugar, it’s Johnette. Johnette Bendel. Mr. Bendel’s my daddy. I used to know the Aunts too.”
I search my memory for this woman but can’t place her. “Of course,” I lie. I smile. “Good to see you.”
“You haven’t changed a bit. Well, ’cept for the highfalutin clothes.
” She sizes me up. “You must be scorching in that suit.” I nod, smiling again.
I’m needing the wine more than the coffee now.
A few patrons mill around us, pretending to look at canned peas and studying a Stove Top stuffing display, but I know they’re listening. They’re always listening.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she adds, her smile faltering.
I swallow. I’m distracted and jittery from the long drive and can’t think of an appropriate response. I settle on “It’s been a long time.”
“Right,” she says. Her smile is gone now, replaced by an irksome smirk. This highfalutin city girl has offended her. I’ve unintentionally told her she’s not important enough to remember.
“How’s your mama?” she says. The glint in her blue eyes tells me this is a prod. Kudos to her. Mama is indeed the best way to taunt me.
“Fine,” I say because answering with She’s had four falls in three months, two broken hips, a broken collarbone, and COPD and somehow still managed to steal cigarettes from nurses at the Texas Rose Rehabilitation Center seems a little TMI.
Mama’s laundry list of ailments reads like one for an eighty-year-old woman.
Not a woman in her late sixties. But Krystal Lynn burned her candle at both ends with such intensity I’m amazed she made it this far.
Seventy seems like a lofty goal for her.
“Good. Good,” Johnette says to my one-word answer. “So,” she adds, “what in the world are you doing down here?” Her right eyebrow lifts slightly.
What’s your game, Johnette?
“I’m just in Broken Bayou for a few days to unwind and relax.” It sounds ridiculous even as I say it, but ridiculous has become my new area of expertise.
Johnette tilts her head to one side. “Unwind? Really?”
My shoulders stiffen.
Johnette shrugs. “Odd time to be here, but I guess you might need a place to unwind after that live television interview yesterday. That was something.”
And there it is.
Shit. How has this woman, in this town, seen that? How viral was I? And if Johnette Bendel has seen it, who else has? It doesn’t bode well for my thinking this place would be a social media graveyard.
“Well . . . ,” I start, then finish with “I better get to my shopping.”
“Okay, sugar, let me know if you can’t find something. I’ll check the back.”
Nothing in her voice tells me she’ll do any such thing.
I push my small cart with a wobbly wheel toward the nearest aisle.
Between the squeaky wheel and my absurd heels on the linoleum floor, I’m making quite a ruckus.
I pause and look back at the end of the aisle.
Johnette is gone, but her words linger in my head.
What did she mean it’s an odd time to be here?
“Oh my God!” A woman’s voice booms through the store.
I jump and snap my head in the other direction.
The aisle is empty. No one is standing there pointing a finger at me and laughing.
I exhale. I’m too jumpy. I need to take my own advice and find a healthy way to navigate my anxiety.
The seven-dollar bottle of chardonnay I’m putting in my cart is probably not the best start.
“We’re going to put that back,” a woman shouts in the next aisle over, and a loud, high-pitched scream follows. Definitely a child’s.
Two women round the endcap onto my aisle shaking their heads.
“Spoiled brat,” one whispers.
“He needs a good old-fashioned spanking,” the other replies.