Chapter One #2
Across the street, Tenn climbed the front steps of a yellow bungalow draped in ivy, his head turning left and right, scanning.
I’d just finished checking behind a hedge of flowering shrubs when a small, fluffy rusty-brown feather drifted down in front of me, swaying gracefully in the breeze.
I reached out and caught it, then looked up into the oak tree, expecting to see a robin peering down.
Instead, I saw a small, dirty foot sticking out from a large crook high off the ground.
“Katy?” I said loudly.
There was no answer. Not so much as a twitch of a toe.
Rain fell on the leafy canopy, a gentle pit-a-pat, as I pulled myself up onto a low branch and made my way upward.
I climbed until I had the perfect view of a small girl with blond hair and purple glasses sound asleep, cradled in the strong arms of the tree.
She wore a summery floral romper, its thin straps tied in bows that rested on tanned shoulders.
A chapter book was open on her chest, rising and falling with her steady breaths. Her toenails were painted pink.
She was, in fact, as cute as could be.
“Did you find her?” Maeve asked from below.
In a loud whisper, I said, “She’s sleeping.”
“Oh, sweet thing. I’m not surprised. She’s been having nightmares that’ve been keeping her up all hours of the night. Before you wake her, let me grab Tenn. I’ll be right back.”
I found her accent to be utterly endearing. She spoke slowly, the words stretched out.
When I glanced back at Katy, I was surprised to see she was now awake and watching me with sleepy blue eyes. Fortunately, she seemed more curious about my presence than disturbed.
“It’s raining,” she said, sitting up and turning her face toward the sky.
“It just started.”
“You don’t like rain.”
I tipped my head. “How do you know that?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I can just tell.”
It wasn’t the rain I minded, actually, but it often went hand in hand with lightning, and this young girl didn’t need to know my life story—or hear my grief. Especially if she was already having nightmares.
“Do you like to read?” Katy asked, clutching the book to her chest. It had a unicorn on the cover.
“I love to read,” I said.
She nodded, as though I’d passed some sort of test. “Me, too. I like to read to my little sister best of all. She’s just a baby, so she can’t read yet. She’s at Miss Edie’s house. Miss Edie only keeps babies, so I get to stay with Papaw when I’m not at summer camp. Do you like babies?”
“Definitely,” I said, trying to keep up with what she was saying. I suddenly wondered if this was how my family felt when I started rambling, trying to hold their attention. Then I felt a swell of sadness from thinking about them and pushed those thoughts away.
Her eyes widened behind her glasses. “Do you want to have babies?”
“That’s a very personal question, don’t you think?”
She blinked. “But do you? Want babies?”
If she had been one of the students at the private school where I worked, I wouldn’t have answered.
I’d have set a clear boundary and reinforced it.
There was something about this girl, however, that told me I should be open, honest. “One day, maybe,” I said.
“I’m happy enough babysitting my nieces for now. ”
She narrowed her gaze as though she didn’t quite believe me, and it suddenly made me question if I believed me.
Before I could stress too much about that, she asked, “Do you like trees?”
This was much safer ground. “Who doesn’t?”
Her small face crinkled. “Mr. Daniels cut down two of his trees. Old ones. He said they were sick, but they weren’t.”
“So, we don’t like him then?”
Behind her glasses, her eyes twinkled. “Mama said we shouldn’t judge him because sometimes sicknesses can’t be seen.”
“Well, she’s right about that.”
Katy frowned, clearly wanting to stay mad on the felled trees’ behalf, then laid a hand on a thick branch and said, “This tree’s name is Bill. He’s old, too. Papaw would never cut him down.”
I looked up at the dozens of branches fanned out above our heads, then back at the crook where she sat, a wide, smooth, curved spot that seemed to have been created especially for her. “Bill seems the protective sort.”
She gave the tree a loving pat, as if it were a pet. “He is. I’m seven. I’ll be eight on August third. You can come to my party if you want. It’s a unicorn party. How old are you?”
Honestly, I’d have guessed her to be much older. There was an old soul shining in her eyes.
“Twenty-eight, almost twenty-nine. My birthday is in September. And thank you for the invitation, but I’m not going to be in town for that long.” Her birthday wasn’t for another eleven days. “Did you know your great-grandfather has been looking for you?”
Quick as could be, she tucked the book into the top of her romper and scrambled forward. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I just wanted a quiet place to read. Papaw is always playing music and likes to sing along real loud. Real loud.”
I smiled at her dry tone and figured Papaw had to be what she called Tenn. “Do you need help getting down?”
“No, ma’am.”
I’d been crisscrossing the South for a little more than a month now, so I was growing used to hearing ma’am all the time, but it still threw me a bit hearing it from a child. “You can call me Juliet if you want.”
“I’m Katy June Byrd Mayfield,” she said in a precious, practiced voice, scooting right past me on the branch, as if she were one with the tree. She seemed to have absolutely no fear of falling as she quickly descended. “You can call me Katy if you want.”
Her accent wasn’t as strong as Maeve’s, but it was just as delightful.
I followed Katy down, taking my time, because I didn’t have her bold courage. The rain picked up just as Tenn reached us, Maeve right behind him. When he saw Katy, he let out a relieved sigh. “Not a word of this to your mama, y’hear?”
She pretended to zip her lips.
With a small smile, he said, “Hurry on inside and wash up, then. Scoot!”
Katy sprinted across the yard, leaped over the line of pink flowers bordering the front walk, and ran up four wide steps to the front porch. The screen door banged behind her as she went inside the house.
“All’s well that ends well!” Tenn swiped his palms against each other, as if brushing away the incident. “You’ll stay for supper, Juliet? We’d be mighty pleased.”
It felt like an offer too good to turn down. Especially since I didn’t know when the tow truck would arrive. “Dinner sounds nice. Thank you.”
He glanced at his sister. “You’ll stay, too, Maeve?”
“Took you long enough to ask,” she said.
He rolled his eyes, then launched forward, toward the house. “Since when do you need an invitation? You eat supper here near to every night. I’ll meet y’all inside.”
“Yes, yes. Go on in.” She shooed him with her hands. “We’ll be along in a moment.”
Raindrops created polka dots on her cotton dress. Up close, I could see strands of red threading through her pale blond hair.
Taking measured, even steps, she headed up the front walk. “By the end of the day, my bad hip has had it,” she said, explaining her pace. “It needs to be replaced, but I keep putting it off, delaying the inevitable.”
“Why wait?” I asked, being nosy.
“Time, honey. Or the lack of it.” Then she added, “I spoke with Callum, my grandson. He’ll be by within the hour with the tow truck.”
I supposed I should be grateful my hatchback had stopped smoking. “Thank you for calling him.”
“You’re quite welcome. After supper, we’ll see about finding you a place to stay since you’ll be in town awhile. I have an idea on that, but I need to run it by my brother.”
It was the second time she’d mentioned a long stay. “Maeve? How do you know I’ll be here awhile? Isn’t there a chance my car repair will be an easy fix?”
“Oh, honey, I know it the same way I know it wasn’t a real detour that brought you to town. Forget-Me-Not is often a landing place for those who’ve lost their way. That’s you, isn’t it?”
I rubbed goose bumps from my arms as the word lost echoed through my head. “But the highway construction—”
Shaking her head, she faced me. Her blue eyes were filled with kindness, empathy. “I’d venture to say you’d lost your way before you even got on the road.”
I blinked away tears, feeling the weight, the pain, of the last three months.
She gently patted my arm, then pulled open the door and waved me onward. “Come now. We should help Tenn make supper. He’s a man of many talents, but cooking ain’t one of them.”
As I followed her into the house, I realized I was still holding the robin feather.
I tucked it into my pocket, finding myself suddenly wanting to tell Maeve how I had been feeling lost. I’d been hoping this road trip would help me remember who I was and what I wanted out of life, because my grief and fuzzy memory had made it hard to remember.
But for some reason, I had the feeling she already knew.