She stood, brushing a crumb from her sundress, and leaned in to kiss Joe on the cheek. “Thanks for everything.”
His eyes softened. “Anytime.”
He laced their fingers together like it was second nature, and they started the walk back toward the motel.
“Meet you back out here in a sec?” she asked when they reached the walkway.
“You bet.”
Inside the motel room, her mom was zipping up her suitcase even though they weren’t leaving until tomorrow morning. Of course, she was. Leanne had always been the type of person who packed early and double-checked the map twice.
Still, she looked different now. Free in a way Nora had never quite seen before. Like maybe this road trip had unraveled something inside her too.
Something that wasn’t going to be packed back up again.
There was a certain set to her mother’s mouth, a quiet resolve that made Nora’s chest tighten. That wasn’t just end-of-summer tiredness. That was the weight of a woman bracing for reality.
Nora lingered in the doorway, watching Leanne smooth the bedspread one last time, even though she’d rumple it again tonight when they went to bed.
“Last day,” Nora said softly.
Leanne looked up, her smile warm but tinged with sadness. “Yeah. This really has been…incredible. I’m going to miss being out on the road with you.”
“Me too.” Nora didn’t sugarcoat it. “I’m going to missyou, Mom.”
The words cracked something open in Leanne’s face. Tears pooled instantly, and she blinked hard, looking up at the ceiling like she could will them back into her skull. But Nora saw them.
Instead of calling her on it, Nora stepped closer and wrapped her arms around her mother.
The hug caught them both by surprise.
They stood there in the middle of the motel room, holding each other like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like the months—maybe years—of tension hadn’t happened.
Nora didn’t know how long they stood there, but eventually, tears pricked her eyes, and she pulled back with a sniff, fanning her face with both hands.
“Why am I so emotional?” she half laughed, her voice thick.
Leanne chuckled through her own tears. “Because our epic trip is coming to an end.”
But it was more than that. Nora could feel it. This wasn’t just goodbye to a road trip. This was goodbye to the version of herself that had climbed into the Lincoln Continental weeks ago, full of expectations, pressure, and plans.
Goodbye to the freedom of the open road. The freedom of reinvention.
And she didn’t quite know how to let that go.
Chapter Forty-Three
Eleanor never did care much for goodbyes. That was part of why she’d slipped out of her house weeks ago without leaving a single note for Leanne. Goodbyes were tidy, clinical, expected. But a real, messy, music-filled life was never that neat.
Henry had known that about her too. Maybe that’s why he’d died the way he did—quietly, in his sleep, no warning, no hospital beeps, no tearful farewells. Just there one night and gone the next. A part of her had always wondered if he’d done it on purpose, sparing her the weight of a goodbye.
That familiar heaviness filled her chest, watching from the edge of the tent while the last stragglers of Woodstock rolled up their lives into bedrolls and duffel bags. The festival was winding down, the music fading into memory. Shep and his band were buzzing about Colorado, their next stop. Another gig, another town.
They’d asked her to come.
And oh, how tempting it was. To keep riding the high of late nights and impromptu jams, of being known not as someone’s mother or someone’s wife but as Mama Lightning, the Dame of Rock and Roll.
But her bones ached in places she’d forgotten existed, and her mind was starting to slip more than she wanted to admit. Faces blurred. Time blurred. Sometimes, so did her name.
