She couldn’t deny that the temptation was there but so was the potential for disaster. Like a parched forest and a stray bolt of lightning, the chance of conflagration was all too real. And if marriage to Stephen had taught her anything, it was that she wasn’t cut out for the love-and-marriage paradigm. Yes, she had belonged to Stephen, legally and perhaps even emotionally for a time. But belonging to someone and giving yourself to them were two very different things. One formed out of need, a tidy arrangement mutually beneficial to both parties, while the other involved laying yourself bare—something she’d never been very good at.

She eyed the manuscript again with a lingering pang of guilt, then grabbed her laptop. She’d get around to it—eventually. But for now she was playing it safe. She went to her in-box first, pleasantly surprised to find a request from Kimberly Ward, a women’s fiction author, inquiring about a possible signing for her debut novel. She had included several links, one of which took her to the author’s website.

A pretty redhead smiled back at her from the landing page, a thirtysomething with long copper hair and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her bio was brief but friendly—a mother of two boys and two tricolor shelties; a lifelong native of Beaufort, South Carolina; a southern lit junkie who’d cut her teeth on The Prince of Tides and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Christy-Lynn liked her already. But it was the montage of photos on the About Me page that intrigued her most: ancient oaks dripping with silver-blue moss, historic downtown streets lined with palmettos, a sliver of sun sinking into gilded water. It was all so lovely, so charmingly old South. And yet it was nothing like the South Carolina she’d grown up in.

Without warning, Charlene Parker’s face drifted into her head. Not the stitched-up ruin she had glimpsed that last night at the hospital, but the face of the woman she’d been before the drugs and booze had taken hold. She’d heard from her only once in twenty years, a phone call out of the blue six or seven years back, and then nothing. Whether she was still alive was anyone’s guess. Women like Charlene Parker, who engaged in what psychologists referred to as high-risk behaviors, had a habit of dying young.

On impulse, Christy-Lynn opened a new window and typed the words people finder into the search bar. When a list of sites popped up, she clicked the first one and typed in her mother’s name, birth date, and last known city and state. The screen blinked then popped up with a list of names and addresses. And there she was, third down on the list: Charlene Kendra Parker, 1710 Proctor Avenue, Apartment 13, Walterboro, South Carolina. Last reported at the given address seven months ago.

Alive then, after all these years.

There was no phone number listed, but that was hardly a surprise. When times got tough—which they always did—the phone had always been the first thing to go. Not that Christy-Lynn would have used a number if there had been one. After so many years, so much anger and resentment, what was there to say? But the answer came back almost before the question had formed. There was plenty to say. Plenty of blame to lay. Plenty of fingers to point. And maybe some of those fingers would be pointed back at her. For the kind of daughter she’d been. The kind who left a mother in trouble and never looked back.

Five hours. Six at most. She could make the trip in a day. But why? There was no way of knowing if she was even still there. And what if she was? There was no way to patch it up now, no way to fill the empty places Charlene Parker’s brand of motherhood had carved out in her. And yet she found herself opening the drawer of the nightstand, reaching for the familiar dog-eared envelope.

Dar’s words rose like a specter. Let the memories catch up to you. Except she didn’t want to let them catch up. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. Instead of opening the envelope, she dropped it back into the drawer. She’d been doing just fine keeping her past under lock and key. Okay, maybe not fine, but she was managing. She saw no need to relive it all again. Once had been quite enough.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Clear Harbor, Maine

March 12, 2011

Christy-Lynn is walking through the door with an armload of groceries when she hears the phone ringing. After dumping the bags on the counter, she reaches for the phone. The caller ID displays an 843 area code—South Carolina. Her stomach clenches.

“Hello?”

There’s a brief silence and then, “Sorry, wrong number.”

The voice is familiar, unnerving after more than ten years—the voice of a ghost. “Mama?”

She can hear breathing over the line and in the background what sounds like The Price Is Right. Her mother had always loved The Price Is Right.

“Mama—is that you?”

There’s the sound of a lighter flicking, the pull of breath, the release of smoke. “You sound different,” Charlene Parker says finally. “All Yankee-fied.”

Christy-Lynn’s legs feel bloodless as she sags against the chilly granite countertop. “How did you get this number?”

Charlene ignores the question. “I was glad to hear about your marriage and to a real up-and-comer too. Looks like my baby girl’s landed herself in high cotton. But then I always knew you would. You were always so smart, so . . . good.”

Christy-Lynn doesn’t ask how she knows about Stephen. The publicity photos had made the usual rounds. She remains quiet for a time, letting her mother’s words hang between them on the line. Was it sadness she heard? Bitterness? Accusation?