I hurriedly walk up the porch steps and engulf her in a gentle hug. “Hey, Mama J.”
It’s something I started calling her a long time ago. Growing up, she and Ryder’s mom, Faith, were always like second mothers to me, even more so after I lost Mom and Dad. And though Marcus, Christopher, and Charlotte are not her blood-related grandchildren like Elizabeth Ann, she and Mitch love them like they are.
She gives me a watery smile that deepens the crow’s feet crinkling her eyes. “My boy came home.”
The punch of emotion I feel when she says that steals my breath. I don’t know what I would do if my children left and never came back. She and Mitch would travel to California to see Jayson as often as they could, but it’s not the same as home or the hometown you grew up in.
I kiss her wrinkled cheek. “Yes, he did. Where’s Mitch? Is he here?”
Mitch loves to play golf. He says it keeps him young.
“Inside making coffee. Will you join us?”
I’m about to accept when Jayson interjects, “We’ll be there in a minute. I need to talk to Liz—in private, if that’s okay.”
She wrings her hands again, her eyes worried. “Of course.”
Going to her, he stills her fidgeting, then leans in and kisses her temple. “We’ll be right back. I promise.”
She gives a few shaky nods.
“Come on,” Jayson says, offering me his bent elbow. I immediately slip my arm through his. After descending the steps and turning the corner of the house, he slows our walk to a meandering stroll. “It’s surreal being home again.”
“How so?”
“Same but different.” He gazes down at me. “Jules came by the hotel this morning. We talked. It was a hard talk. But a good one.”
I hadn’t wanted to pry, but I was going to eventually ask. “I’m glad.”
“Had basically the same talk with Mom and Dad a few hours ago. You’re next, I guess,” he adds, trying to infuse a little humor into what sounds like a really bad day of back-to-back confrontations. He must be emotionally exhausted.
A few butterflies flutter from flower to flower in Freda’s garden as we make our way across the backyard to the forest beyond. Through the thick bramble, I spot the remains of myold fort. The plyboards have been eaten by termites and are pockmarked with chew holes.
“Jayson—” I say just as he says, “Liz, I?—”
He lifts his chin. “You go first.”
“You can go first,” I insist, suddenly forgetting what I was about to ask.
Gesturing for me to sit on one of the stumps Dad had cut for me and Hailey to use as stools, he picks another one off the ground and sets it upright, then takes a seat.
He looks around, breathes in. “There’s so much I want to tell you, I don’t even know where to begin.”
I bite my bottom lip and chuckle. “Same.”
He digs the toe of his sneaker into the detritus-littered dirt, raises his eyes to mine, then lowers them to my collar. “You still wear it?” he says with a tinge of awe when he notices the quartz heart hanging from the necklace with the locket.
“The locket never leaves my neck. And I thought the heart was appropriate for today.”
He smooths his middle finger over the polished pink stone. “You’re not making this easy,” he says.
“Am I supposed to?”
His grin flashes wild and beautiful. “Christ, I’ve missed you.”
Not holding back the truth, I tell him, “I’ve missed you, too.”
He reaches around his neck and slips off a gold chain. Guiding my hand toward him, he drops the necklace into my open palm. “That’s where I’ve been the last three years, and why I haven’t come to Seattle for Elizabeth Ann’s birthday.”
