Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The drive to my parents' house took me through the heart of Jasper Creek, past the town square where the courthouse clock chimed four o'clock.
I'd made this drive a hundred times in high school, racing home before curfew, but everything felt different now that I had actually moved back to Jasper Creek, and I wasn’t just visiting.
I pulled into my parents' driveway, parking behind Mom's sedan.
The house looked exactly as it had when I was here five months ago, white siding with black shutters, the porch swing Dad had hung when I was seven still swaying in the breeze.
The flower beds Mom tended with religious devotion bloomed with late summer color.
Standing on the front porch, I knocked twice, a courtesy more than necessity. My parents had never locked their door during the day, not in all my almost twenty-four years. Sure enough, the knob turned easily in my hand. It used to comfort me, now it made me twitchy.
Stop it! This is Mom and Dad’s house!
“Mom?” I called out as I stepped inside.
The house smelled like home, that particular mixture of Mom's vanilla candles, the lemon oil she used on the furniture, and something savory cooking in the kitchen.
Family photos lined the hallway, documenting Seth's, Randy's, and my progression from gap-toothed kids to high school graduates.
I paused at one from my college graduation, Mom and Dad flanking me in my cap and gown, their faces glowing with pride.
“In the kitchen, sweetheart.”
I found her at the sink, cutting cucumbers with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd prepared a thousand family dinners.
The late afternoon sun streamed through the window, catching the silver threads in her blonde hair that hadn't been there when I’d gone overseas.
She wore the apron I'd given her for Christmas my junior year in high school, the one with “Queen of the Kitchen” embroidered across the front.
Without thinking, I hoisted myself onto the counter beside her, my legs swinging like I was twelve again instead of twenty-four. The familiar granite was cool through my jeans.
“Those for the salad Dad won’t eat?” I snagged four cucumber slices from the pile, biting into one with a satisfying crunch.
She swatted at my hand but smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “They were. At this rate, we'll just be having lettuce for the salad.”
I finished the cucumber slices and snagged a cherry tomato.
“Don’t you get any food at Miss Laverne’s?”
“Yeah. I had gumbo, fresh bread, and we had ice cream for dessert. But that was four hours ago,” I sighed tragically.
Mom laughed. “One day you won’t have the metabolism you have now,” she warned.
“Which is why I’m taking advantage of it now and eating to my heart’s content.”
“If you’d come by the house sooner, I could have fed you. Tonight is pot roast with potatoes au gratin. Next week will be lamb.”
“Yum.”
“Now explain to me why it took you so long to come over.”
“Hey, I came over the first day I moved in. And it’s not like you haven’t seen me since I’ve moved back from London.”
“For an hour, and that was to recruit your dad to help your brothers move your things into a storage unit. I want to know why it took you two weeks and three phone calls to get you here for a meal.”
Guilt twisted in my stomach. “Mom...”
“I know you've been settling in at Miss Laverne's, getting oriented at the clinic.” She set down the peeler and turned to face me fully, wiping her hands on her apron. “But Joy, I need to say something.”
Here it came. I'd been expecting this conversation since I'd announced my living arrangements. I braced myself, gripping the counter edge.
“Miss Laverne is a lovely woman, truly. She makes the best cornbread in three counties, and her quilts have won more blue ribbons than anyone can count.” Mom reached out and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, a gesture so familiar it made my chest ache.
“But your father and I have missed you while you've been living in Nashville. We want our Joy time.”
The raw honesty in her voice nearly broke my resolve. “Mom, we talked about this when I decided to move back to Jasper Creek.”
“Talking about it and living it are two different things.” Her hand dropped to cover mine. “You're finally home, and you're living across town instead of here with us. Your room is exactly as you left it. I even bought new sheets, those high-thread-count ones you always talked about.”
I slid off the counter and wrapped my arms around her. She felt smaller than I remembered, or maybe I'd just forgotten how perfectly we fit together.
“I need my own space right now.” I pulled back to meet her eyes, those same blue ones I saw in the mirror every morning. “It doesn't mean I love you any less. I'll visit all the time. Sunday dinners, random Tuesday lunches, Thursday night TV shows. You'll probably get sick of me.”
“Never.” She cupped my cheek. “A mother never gets sick of her children.”
“Even when Seth and Randy used to practice their wrestling moves in the living room and broke your grandmother's lamp?”
A laugh bubbled out of her. “Well, maybe I wanted to ship them off to military school that day.”
“They both tried to enlist anyway.”
“Don't remind me.” She picked up the peeler again, resuming her work. “I aged ten years when Seth came home with that knee injury from training. And Randy with his heart murmur discovery—thank God they found it before he shipped out.”
We fell into easier conversation as I helped her prep vegetables.
She told me about the new family that moved in down the street, the Petersons from Memphis with their three kids who'd already made friends with everyone on the block.
I shared a funny story about one of the dogs at the clinic who'd learned to open the treat cabinet and had to be relocated to a kennel with a better lock.
“Dr. Laramie says he's too smart for his own good,” I said, chopping celery with the knife skills Mom had taught me years ago. “Yesterday he figured out how to unlatch his kennel from the inside.”
“Sounds like you when you were two and learned to escape your crib.”
“I was an angel.”
“An angel who gave me gray hair.” She bumped my hip with hers. “Speaking of the clinic, how are you finding the night shifts?”
“They're quiet, mostly. Emergencies here and there, but nothing I can't handle.”
“Your father worries.”
“Dad worries if I get a paper cut.”
“He loves you.” She opened the oven and pulled out the roast, it smelled heavenly.
She scooped up some of the drippings and poured them over the top, then popped it back into the oven and closed the door, then turned to me.
“We both love you. We worry. Neither of us liked the way you came home from London and immediately moved to Nashville. It felt like you were running away.”
I bit my lip, then immediately released it.
Luckily she hadn’t been looking at me, if she had, she would have called me on it.
That was the problem with moms—they knew you too well.
“I wasn’t running away, Mom. I was just spreading my wings.
It turned out that Nashville wasn’t all I’d thought it’d be, so I decided to come home. ”
“But not home, home.”
I turned and kissed her cheek. “Now I’m just twenty minutes away.”
She sighed. “That’s what I keep telling myself.”
Before she could press further, the front door banged open with enough force to rattle the pictures on the wall.
“Where's my baby girl?”
Dad's voice boomed through the house with the same enthusiasm he'd had every time he came home during my childhood.
Heavy footsteps approached, and I barely had time to set down my knife before he appeared in the kitchen doorway.
His face split into a huge grin, and he crossed the room in three strides, sweeping me into a bear hug that lifted me clean off my feet.
“Dad, I can't breathe.”
“Let the man hug his daughter, Joy.” Mom laughed. “He's been asking every day when you were coming by.”
He set me down but kept his hands on my shoulders, studying my face with those warm brown eyes that Randy had inherited.
Where Seth and I got Mom's fair coloring, Randy was all Dad, from his darker hair to his broader build.
Dad's smile was exactly the same, the one that had always made me feel like the most important person in the world.
“You look good, JoJo. That job at the veterinary clinic treating you well?”
“Little Grandma outdid herself finding it for me. Dr. Hart, I mean Roxie, is great, and the clinic is busier than you'd expect.”
His smile dimmed slightly, concern creeping into his expression. “Your mother mentioned you're working nights.”
“Yeah, and it’s great. I get to spend all my time loving on the animals.”
“Alone?”
“Dad.”
“It's a valid question. The clinic's on the edge of town, and that parking lot doesn't have the best lighting.”
“Roxie had new security lights installed last year.”
“Still.” He crossed his arms, his protective father mode fully engaged. “You still carrying that pepper spray I got you?”
“Always.” I pulled my keychain from my pocket, showing him the small canister attached. “See? Right where it should be.”
“Good. What about some refresher sessions with your brothers? Been a while since they put you through your paces.”
I rolled my eyes. “I'm fine, Dad. Seth and Randy made sure I knew how to handle myself before I left for community college.”
“That was years ago. Skills get rusty.”
“My skills are not rusty.”
His face shifted into what Mom called his sad puppy expression, the one he'd perfected over years of trying to get his way. “Still won't carry a gun?”
“We've been over this a dozen times.”
“Thirteen, actually,” Mom interjected. “I've been counting.”
“I know, I know.” He pulled me in for another hug, gentler this time, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Just want you safe. Can't blame a father for that.”
“I am safe.”