Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
FRANKIE
Now
They reached Ferrisville, a small, sleepy town in northwestern Alabama, a little before four in the afternoon under an overcast sky.
Worn, two-story brick buildings lined the streets, many of them abandoned, and since the tiny downtown was largely empty of people at this hour, it gave the impression of a place forgotten by the rest of the world.
On their way to the address Norman had dug up, they passed a one-story town hall, three churches, a shuttered gas station, and several properties with rusted trailers decorating overgrown front lawns, but there were also glimpses of a persisting community here and there.
A flowerbed bursting with blossoms. Freshly painted shutters. Children laughing on a playground.
Frankie took it all in while Owen navigated increasingly narrow streets in silence, as if he could tell that she was trying to sense her roots in this foreign place, but when he pulled to a stop where a country road lined with small ramblers turned into a parking lot, he cleared his throat.
“I think this is it,” he said, peering out the window at the strip mall where half the storefronts were boarded up. Only a law office and a nail salon were still in business.
“No, it can’t be.” Frankie pulled up the address on her phone and double-checked it, finding him to be right.
“They must have torn it down to make room for this at some point,” Owen said. “I’m sorry.”
Frankie stared at the depressing building.
Now she would never know what her parents’ first home had looked like.
“It’s okay,” she said, convincing herself as the words crossed her lips.
This wasn’t the most important stop on their journey.
Tomorrow morning, they would visit city hall, and hopefully there would be some public records she could access about her parents and the sibling she’d never known.
“Let’s head back to town and see if we can find a place to eat. ”
“You sure?”
Frankie gestured toward the window. “There’s nothing here. And I’m starving.”
They backtracked to where they’d spotted a fried chicken joint, deciding on takeout since the atmosphere left a lot to be desired, and after they’d finished their food in the car, they headed for the motel Owen had found for them.
“Looks kind of cute,” Frankie said when they pulled into the lot.
The motel was situated between a ball field and a Latter-day Saints church, and with its Spanish hacienda-style roofline and colorful siding, it couldn’t have looked more out of place.
They checked in, said goodnight, and went to their separate rooms with a plan to meet up for breakfast at eight in the morning.
Frankie sank onto the yellow coverlet blanketing the queen-sized bed, taking a moment to let the day’s impressions wash over her, to catch up. They’d lived here once, her parents. Her family. And yet she’d never heard the name of the town until yesterday.
“Were you happy here?” she asked out loud, and perhaps the silence that followed was answer enough. Knowing Estelle, this would not have been an easy place to be. That was if Frankie had known her—something that seemed increasingly unclear these days.
She flopped back onto the bed and stared upward, tracing the uneven wallpaper edge where it met the ceiling.
The air conditioning turned off with a clank, leaving only a faint buzzing noise behind.
Occasionally, a car would pull into the lot, headlights flickering past the drawn curtain and drawing her gaze, but mostly she let the numbness of meandering thoughts sweep her away.
When it got dark enough that the shapes in the room blurred, she finally got off the bed and turned on a light. Then she brushed her teeth, changed out of her clothes, and pulled back the sheets.
The buzzing noise intensified tenfold.
Frankie paused, looking around the room. She dropped the sheet and stepped closer to the air vent, but that wasn’t the source. In fact, the further from the bed she went, the fainter the noise.
She frowned as she retraced her steps, treading slowly so she could hear better. She took hold of the sheets again and shook them a little. The buzzing rose instantly, and at the same time, a handful of bees shot up from the foot of the bed.
“What the…?” Frankie dropped the sheet and stepped back. No way could that be what she thought it was.
After waiting a minute, she reached for her cell phone on the nightstand and turned on its flashlight. Then she squatted next to the bed and gently lifted the side of the coverlet to peer underneath the bedframe.
Thirty seconds later, she was knocking on Owen’s door, her backpack in one hand, her shoes in the other, and her travel clothes under one arm. “Owen!”
When he didn’t immediately open, she banged her elbow into it a few more times.
“One sec!” she heard from inside, and a moment later he wrenched the door ajar, holding a tiny towel together at the hip with one hand. His hair was dripping wet. “Frankie. Is everything okay?” He looked over her shoulder as if searching for something or someone.
“Yeah,” she sputtered, forcing her gaze away from a torso that bore no trace of the slender teen he’d once been.
This was the build of someone who’d done years of manual labor, and she’d have to be a robot not to recognize that it suited him.
But at the sight of his confused expression, she shook her head, her cheeks heating.
“I mean no. There’s a beehive under my bed. ”
“A what?” Owen took a step toward her, leaning forward to peer out the door as if the answer was there.
“A beehive. With honey and everything. I think. I didn’t exactly stay to investigate. They did not appreciate my company.” She shuddered at what might have befallen her in the middle of the night had she not discovered her companions beforehand.
“Come in,” Owen said. “Let me put on some sweats, and then I’ll call down to let the front desk know.” He left her standing at the foot of his identical bed while he disappeared into the bathroom.
Frankie resisted the temptation to look beneath his bed too, trusting that the absence of buzzing was enough.
“Okay, let’s see.” Owen lifted the receiver on the nightstand and dialed zero for the motel reception.
Frankie listened as he described the issue and reassured them no one was hurt. “Would we be able to get a different room?” He paused, listening. “Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, that’s no problem. Yeah, back to the same account is fine. Okay. Yes, you as well.” He hung up.
“What did they say?” Frankie asked.
Owen used his forearm to wipe water dripping from his hair off his forehead. “Good news and, um, not so good news. They’ll credit the cost of the room back to us, but all other rooms are booked. Which means you’ll have to stay in here tonight.”
“Oh.”
They both looked at the one bed in the room.
“I’ll take the floor of course,” Owen said. “They said I can pick up extra pillows downstairs.”
“No way.” Frankie set her backpack down and unburdened herself from her other parcels as well. “That doesn’t seem fair. I’ll take the floor.”
Owen looked at her for an extended beat, then he turned away, reaching for a T-shirt from the chair at the small wall-anchored desk. “You know as well as I do that I’d never let you do that.”
“Then we share the bed,” Frankie said before she could think better of it. “We’ve done it before, and it’s only for one night.”
Owen scratched the side of his head. “Are you sure? I might snore.”
“So might I.”
He let out a laugh. “I’m sure you haven’t snored a night in your life. And those cute little sighs you used to let out don’t count.”
Her eyebrows rose at the unexpected throwback.
He looked away. “Um, I’m going to run down for those pillows.” Was he blushing? “Why don’t you… pick a side.” He gestured to the bed, and before she knew it, he was out the door.
A sleepover with Owen. Now there was something she’d never thought she’d say. She’d never fully stayed the night with him in high school, but they had watched movies in his room, and she’d dozed off against his shoulder.
There would be no touching tonight though. This was a sleeping arrangement borne out of necessity, and all hands would be above the covers. Maybe she’d even tuck a pillow between them for good measure, so he didn’t think she’d had ulterior motives for suggesting they share the bed.
Before she could decide, he was back, carrying two pillows in his arms.
She cleared her throat, then got in on the left side of the bed, avoiding looking at him as she settled underneath the covers.
She’d brought a book that she’d stopped and started repeatedly over the past month to the point that she barely knew what it was about, so she pulled that out of her bag to distract herself with something while he got ready.
The bed bounced when he climbed in, forcing her attention.
They exchanged a tight smile, but then she returned to her pages, where words swam together, making no sense at all.
She hadn’t spent the night with anyone since Zach, and the awareness of Owen right there next to her had her on high alert.
The smallest movement of his hand shifting its grip on his phone sent a waft of his masculine scent her way, and the warmth from him transferred through the sheets even though she’d tucked the cover down in a V between them.
She flipped the page to give the appearance of reading.