A Montana Homecoming. Allison Leigh

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      A person might have to be desperate to stay in it.

      She pushed aside the thought. She wasn’t desperate. She was just…at loose ends.

      After unloading the trunk, Laurel went inside the house, stepping over the porch steps. She’d already made the mistake of stepping too firmly on one. It had creaked ominously. The treads would definitely have to be replaced before some unwary soul went right through them.

      How had her father lived here this way? As if he’d just given up on having any sort of decent home a long time ago?

      She grabbed the box of trash bags she’d purchased and went inside. She’d start upstairs and work her way down.

      It was a nice, sensible plan, and just having a plan made her feel better.

      She went up the narrow staircase and paused at the first closed door. Her parents’ bedroom. She hadn’t gone in there yet. She started to reach for the iron knob. But her stomach clenched, and she curled her fingers into a fist, lowering her hand.

      Later. She could clean out that room later.

      She went into the only other bedroom. Her own. The narrow bed still had the afghan her grandmother had given her for her eighth birthday, folded neatly at the foot. The ancient student desk where she’d done her homework still stood beneath the single window that overlooked the front yard.

      Nothing had changed since she’d been a girl. Yet everything here—as in the rest of the house—was covered with the thick layer of years of neglect.

      She pulled out an enormous trash bag, flipping the plastic open. She dropped into the bag the glass jars that she’d painted one summer and filled with dried wildflowers. She yanked out the slender center drawer of the desk and tipped it into the bag, a childhood of bits raining out. She shoved the drawer back in place and slid out the second, tipping it, too. Magazines. More pieces of nothing. Then several canvas-covered books fell out from the bottom of the drawer.

      She caught at them, her haste fleeing as quickly as it had struck.

      Her journals. She set them on top of the desk, her fingers lingering on the top one. The canvas was dull, but the delicate lines of the flower printed in the center of the cover was still clear. Sighing a little, she looked from the diary out the window in front of her, then back to the bedroom behind her.

      So long ago, she thought, since she’d been in this house. Her childhood bedroom. And she wasn’t certain if she was grateful for the intervening years or not.

      She looked at the journals again. Flipped the top one open randomly. The pages were stiff from age, but they parted easily midway through the book. She looked at the handwriting. Her handwriting. All loops and curls.

      The handwriting of a girl.

      Dear Gram,

      Did you ever have one of those times when you were doing something you almost are always doing—like taking out the trash or washing the car on a Saturday morning—and then all of a sudden, time kind of stands still?

      That’s what happened to me this morning. I was washing daddy’s truck, on account of he’d left it all muddy and Mom was totally mad about it and they were fighting. (They do that a lot, Gram, but I guess you can see that from up there in heaven.)

      So there I was, standing in the truck bed hosing it down when Shane Golightly drove down the street in his dad’s pickup truck. He stopped in front of the house and said something. Gosh, Gram, I don’t even remember what it was he did say. Isn’t that silly? He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and his arm was hanging out the open window and he stopped and said something—maybe it was about Mom’s job at Tiff’s. See? I can’t remember even when I’m trying.

      I haven’t seen Shane since he went off to go to college several years ago. And I hadn’t heard he was back, which was interesting, ’cause Jenny Travis usually calls me the very second she hears something major like that.

      Anyway, there he was. And, oh Gram. He lifted his hand to wave and the sun was shining on him and everything else sort of disappeared.

      Except for him.

      The water, the mud, the yelling inside the house behind me, it was all gone.

      Shane Golightly, Gram. I’ve known him—and Stu and Evie and Hadley, too, of course—all my life, seems like. He was always nice enough to me, probably because I was a little kid to him. But that moment—and I swear on a stack of Bibles that I’m not exaggerating like Mom’s always saying—that moment was…special, that’s all. Special!!

      I just knew, Gram, that I’d remember that very moment, that I’d remember Shane in that very moment. The way he looked and the way the muddy water ran cold on my feet and the sun burned hot on my shoulders, and the grass smelled sweet, like it had just been mown.

      I knew it.

      I knew that I’d remember that moment all the rest of my life.

      Laurel carefully closed the journal on those girlishly written thoughts, but doing so didn’t close her mind to the memories.

      She wished she could say the memories at the end of the summer were as clear as those from the beginning, when the sight of Shane Golightly had struck with such singular clarity. If only the entire summer were so clear.

      So much of her life would have been different.

      She sighed again and stacked the diaries in the bottom drawer, which she slid back into place in the desk.

      She was sweating by the time she finished with the bedroom and the single bathroom, a state that wasn’t helped by the sight of the sheriff’s vehicle parked at the curb, or the presence of Shane studying the pile of supplies she’d purchased from the hardware store.

      “What are you doing here?”

      “What are you doing?”

      She gestured at the trio of weighty bags full of trash she’d pulled from the house. “What does the evidence tell you?”

      He didn’t look amused. “You shouldn’t be staying here.”

      She crossed her arms, staring down at him where he stood below the porch. “Because I have to take out some trash?”

      He picked up one of the bags and tossed it at the steps. The wood cracked sharply and splintered beneath the bag.

      “Well.” Laurel eyed the half-buried bag. “You can pull that out.”

      “You’re missing the point.” With no seeming effort, he hefted the bag free of the jagged wood without managing to tear the plastic. “That could be you falling through the steps.”

      “Instead, it was an innocent garbage bag. I’m staying, so if that’s your only reason for coming out here, you can go.” The sooner the better.

      He just gave her a look and held out his hand for the remaining bags. She tightened her hold on them. “I can manage.”

      “Hand СКАЧАТЬ