There was a long pause, as if he were hunting for an answer. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just do. Look, you’re tired. Try to sleep if you can and then come home. You’ve got something here, something that’s yours. Maybe that’s what you should focus on. Not the past. And not someone else’s mistakes. The future.”

“All right.”

“Call me when you get on the road.”

“I will.”

But even as she ended the call, she knew she wouldn’t be heading home first thing in the morning.

TWENTY-SIX

If Rhetta was surprised to find Christy-Lynn standing on her porch again the next morning, she hid it well. She was still in her housecoat and slippers when she answered the door. “I suspected you’d be back.”

Christy-Lynn ran her tongue over her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “About yesterday—I’m sorry about walking out like that. I was just . . .”

The sound of cartoons mingled with the aroma of frying bacon drifted out onto the front porch. “I’ve got breakfast going for Iris if you’re hungry.”

Christy-Lynn shook her head. Food was the last thing on her mind. “No, thank you. I just have a few more questions.”

“Yes, I thought you might.” She pulled back the door and stepped aside. “Come on in then and let me get her fed.”

Iris sat cross-legged in front of the television, clutching a bedraggled teddy bear to her chest. Her hair was still sleep-tangled, her eyes glued to the screen. Christy-Lynn fought down a shudder as snatches of the previous night’s dream came flooding back. That tiny face, frantic behind the glass. What in God’s name was she doing here?

“Coffee?” Rhetta offered as Christy-Lynn followed her into the tiny kitchen.

“Yes. If it’s ready.”

Rhetta filled a thick brown mug and set it on the table along with a spoon and a half gallon of milk. “Sugar’s there if you take it.”

Christy-Lynn took a seat, pouring a splash of milk into her mug as she watched Rhetta crack a single egg into a bowl and give it a quick scramble before pouring it into the pan. Her hands trembled as she worked, but she moved with the ease of a woman who had prepared her share of breakfasts. Moments later, she turned the egg out onto a plate, added two slices of bacon, and disappeared into the living room with Iris’s breakfast.

She was a bit winded when she returned, her lips parted and grayish. “I don’t like for her to eat in front of the television,” she said, filling a mug for herself and joining Christy-Lynn at the table. “But this way, we’ll have the kitchen to ourselves.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, it’s not the kind of talk a child should hear, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.”

Rhetta splashed some milk into her coffee, then dropped in a heaping spoonful of sugar. “So,” she said, still stirring. “Here we are again.”

“Yes. Here we are. A friend of mine thinks I’m crazy for coming here. He doesn’t understand why I need to know all the gritty details.”

“No, a man wouldn’t. But I do. You need to make sense of it.”

Christy-Lynn nodded, relieved to at last be understood. “Yes.”

Rhetta’s eyes slid away, watery blue and suddenly full of memory. “I was married once, a million years ago. Men haven’t changed all that much since my time. Women either. We still try to make everything our fault.”

“I guess what I really need to know is . . . why.”

“Good luck figuring that out.”

“Now you sound like Wade.”

“Your friend?”

“Yes. He thinks I’m a glutton for punishment, and maybe I am. It’s certainly a strange thing to be confronted with—the child of your husband’s mistress.”

“I didn’t mean for you to find out about Iris. That was an accident. She’s been through enough without having to figure out who you are. She doesn’t understand where her mama’s gone, not that her mama was around all that much.”

“Where was she?”

Rhetta sighed, a hoarse, tired rasp. “Who knows. With him, somewhere. I told you Honey had her heart set on being an actress. Where she came up with that idea, I’ll never know, but that was her dream. She took a few acting classes in high school and at the community college, even did a commercial for a furniture store here in town. She wasn’t very good, but she was pretty, and I guess she thought that was enough because off she went to find him.” Rhetta rose and shuffled to the counter, returning with the coffeepot to top off their mugs. “Groupies, they used to call them in my day, but that was for singers and movie stars. I didn’t know writers had them too.”

For an instant, Christy-Lynn was transported back to the day she bumped into Stephen in the hall at Lloyd and Griffin. If possible, he had been even better-looking than the author photo on the back of his novels, and with his polished smile and easy patter, he had positively oozed charm. It wasn’t hard to imagine a girl like Honey, ambitious, starry-eyed, and desperate for a ticket out of Riddlesville, succumbing to that combination—as she herself had.

“My husband had a way of collecting people,” she said finally. “Like a magnet. I used to think it was unconscious. Now I realize he knew exactly what he was doing. Funny what you can see in the rearview mirror.”