Chapter 31 Abilene
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Abilene
Saturday
It’s the kind of Saturday I’ve seen a hundred times at the market. Busy, but not overwhelming.
Families mill about. It’s buzzing with the sound of children laughing, music playing faintly in the background, and the clink of coins in my cash box.
My stall smells of a warm mix of honey, beeswax, and fresh lavender soap, and I feel like I might be okay. I’ve got this.
There’s something calming about the rhythm of setting up, making change, explaining the difference between clover and wildflower honey for the hundredth time.
The way people smile when they take a jar of golden sweetness home—it’s an accomplishment. A quiet one, but an accomplishment all the same.
But…
The second my booth is set up, that familiar tightness crawls back into my chest. I can’t quite settle, no matter how hard I try.
The jars are perfect. The candles look like they were arranged by a curator. My display is nothing short of professional. Everything should be easy.
Except that it isn’t.
I try to push it down. The distraction in my thoughts. The way my heart races every time I think about last night, about Wyatt, and that moment when he stood there and asked me on a date, looking calm and nervous at the same time.
I can’t stop thinking about his voice, the way he spoke like it was the most normal thing in the world. It should have felt normal. It should have been easy. But it wasn’t.
Nothing about it was easy.
I give myself a mental shake, as if that’ll clear out the clutter. I’m at the market. This is my space. My bees, my honey, my story.
I spot a couple walking toward my stall, and like the practiced saleswoman I am, I put on my smile and shift gears.
“Have you tried our signature honey? Golden Meadow is a personal favorite,” I say smoothly, offering them a jar.
They nod politely, and the woman picks up a jar to inspect the label, glancing at her phone as she walks away, lost in whatever world her screen holds.
My stomach flips. I hate when that happens. A small pang of disappointment gnaws at me, but I push it down. It can’t be helped.
The rush ebbs and flows like a tide.
A family with sticky toddlers clears out, replaced by a couple of tourists who want to know if the honey is “local local” or just local in the way souvenir shops like to pretend.
I smile and explain pollen ranges and flight distances, and watch their eyes glaze a little before they buy two jars anyway.
A woman asks about soaps for sensitive skin. A man wants something for his wife who “likes bees but is scared of them.”
I recommend a candle. He laughs and buys two.
By late morning, the sun is higher, the shadows shorter, and there are pockets of quiet between customers, brief stretches when I can finally breathe.
I take a sip of water, stretch my shoulders, and glance down at my phone, which has been sitting face down beside the cash box, waiting patiently.
I tell myself I’m just checking the time.
I’m lying.
I flip it over and open the browser instead.
The words from the letter echo in my head, uninvited and insistent.
There is someone else who knows. Someone who stepped away before you were old enough to understand why.
Someone who left. Someone who survived.
My thumb hovers over the search bar.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for, not really. A face that looks vaguely like my mother’s. A name that sparks recognition.
Proof that I didn’t imagine all of this because grief needed somewhere new to land.
I start with what I know: Mara Kentwood.
The name feels strange every time I think it. My aunt. My mother’s sister.
A woman who existed as a vague shape, a story told once and then never again. She lived “elsewhere.” She was “busy.” She “didn’t keep in touch.”
I was too young to ask what that really meant.
I type her name in, half-expecting nothing.
The signal out here isn’t great, so the page loads slowly, the little spinning circle giving me too much time to overthink.
Then… results.
Not many. But not zero.
My pulse picks up.
There’s a social media profile with the right name. The location is different—coastal, not inland—but the age range fits.
There’s a profile picture: a woman with silver threaded through dark hair, standing on a beach with her feet in the surf, squinting into the sun, daring it to look back.
She has my mother’s mouth.
Not exactly, not enough to be unmistakable. But enough that my chest tightens painfully.
“Oh,” I whisper.
I tap the profile, heart pounding as if I’ve done something wrong.
The page is mostly private, but there are a few public photos. Landscapes. A dog. A pottery mug that looks handmade. A caption about tides and patience and learning when to stay and when to leave.
Patience.
The word feels like a hand closing around my ribs.
My grandmother’s voice floats up from memory, uninvited.
Good things don’t rush, Abi. They wait until you’re ready to see them.
My hands start to shake.
I lock my phone again, pressing it flat against the table as if I can physically keep my thoughts from spilling out.
A customer steps up just then, saving me from spiraling completely, and I snap back into market mode like it’s muscle memory.
“Yes, hi… sorry,” I say, smiling too brightly. “What can I help you with?”
By the time the customer leaves with a bar of soap and a jar of honey sticks, my heart is still racing, but the stall is quiet again.
The lull stretches.
I glance at my phone.
Then away.
Then back again.
This is ridiculous. I’m an adult woman who runs a business, manages livestock that can sting, and survived a wildfire evacuation—and somehow this is the thing that has me feeling like a teenager hovering over a landline phone.
I unlock the screen again.
The profile is still there. Still real. Still watching me with that familiar yet not familiar face.
I click Message.
The blank text box stares back at me.
What do you say to someone who might be your aunt and might also be a complete stranger?
Hi, I think we share blood and secrets?
Hi, sorry to bother you, but did you abandon my family on purpose?
Hi, I’m unraveling my entire understanding of my life, can you help?
My fingers hover uselessly.
I delete three attempts before anything sticks. Finally, I type:
Hello,
This might be strange, and I’m sorry if I have the wrong person. My name is Abilene Kentwood. I believe we may be related.
If I’m mistaken, please feel free to ignore this.
If not… I would really appreciate hearing from you.
I read it three times.
It sounds too formal. Too cautious. Too much like I’m bracing for rejection before it even happens.
I almost delete it.
Almost.
Then I hit send.
The message disappears, replaced by the quiet, terrible certainty that I can’t take it back.
I set the phone down and immediately feel hollow.
The market hums around me, oblivious.
A dog barks somewhere. A fiddle starts up again near the far end of the square. Someone laughs, loud and unrestrained.
I watch the little Sent label under the message like it might change if I stare hard enough.
It doesn’t.
Minutes pass.
Nothing.
My chest sinks slowly, a stone settling into mud.
Of course she doesn’t reply right away. People are busy. People don’t owe you immediate answers to life-altering questions.
I know that. But it doesn’t help.
My thoughts tangle into each other, messy and loud.
Wyatt’s careful voice.
Jesse’s smile.
Marshall’s intense presence.
My grandmother’s journal.
The letters.
The fire.
The bees.
Now this.
It’s too much.
It feels like my life has turned into one of those tables at the market after a sudden gust of wind. Everything is still technically there, but not quite where it belongs anymore.
I exhale slowly, pressing my palm flat against the wood of my stall, grounding myself in the familiar texture.
“Focus,” I murmur under my breath. “One thing at a time.”
Honey first. Always, honey first.
I straighten a row of jars that doesn’t actually need straightening and glance up just as someone steps into the edge of my vision.
“Abilene.”
My name lands softly but firmly.
I look up.
And find myself face-to-face with Marshall.