Her mother shook her head. “Shall we continue with the Mafia underworld? Maybe hearing about crime will stop me from committing one.”
Nora laughed, surprising herself. “That frustrated, huh?”
“Nothing a little crime fiction can’t fix.”
Nora began to read, falling back into the story’s cadence—Don Corleone, criminal justice, loyalty, and blood. She could feel her mother watching her out of the corner of her eye. Normally she’d roll her eyes and ask her mother what she was staring at, but this time, she wasn’t as irritated as she’d expected to be. That was a real shock.
She realized in a flash of insight that, though they’d only been on the road for about twenty-four hours, something felt…different. Not entirely comfortable, not yet. And she was still irritated she was missing out on her summer with her friends. But she’d expected more arguing. Instead, it felt easier. Like the edges between them had started to soften.
She stopped reading, staring out the window at a row of farmland rushing by. And suddenly, a pang hit her in the chest—sharp and unexpected.
In a few months, she wouldn’t be riding in a car with her mother. She’d be in a dorm room. Eating in a dining hall. Figuring out where to do her laundry and how to navigate a campus that still wasn’t quite sure what to do with its first class of female undergrads.
For the last eighteen years, it had mostly been the two of them. Sure, she’d gone to sleepovers, had weekends away, and a whole week at the lake after graduation. But she’d always come home again. Even when she was annoyed with her mother’s existence.
She closed the book and set it in her lap.
“Mom,” she said softly, “can I ask you something?”
Leanne glanced at her, hands at three and nine o’clock on the wheel. There was a flicker of concern at the corners of her eyes. “Of course.”
Nora hesitated. “Did you know it was the last time you were going home? When you left?”
Leanne let out a small laugh, taken aback by the question. “I just went home a few days ago.”
“No, I mean—” Nora looked out the window again, trying to find the right words. “I mean when you left home. To live somewhere else. Did you know it was the last time? That you might visit but you wouldn’t be living there anymore?”
Leanne was quiet. She bit her lip, then nodded slowly. “Yes. I think I did. I’d known for a while. That it was time.”
She glanced sideways at Nora. “Are you…?”
But she didn’t finish the question.
Nora shrugged, her voice quieter now as she voiced what had been on her mind for weeks. “Just thinking I might want to come home before Thanksgiving. For a weekend or something.”
Leanne’s hand tightened slightly on the wheel, making Nora’s stomach imitate the movement.
“You can come home anytime you want, Nora,” she said. Her voice was steady but soft, and instantly Nora’s muscles relaxed.
Leanne’s voice held the weight of her earnest expression. “Our house is your house. Always.”
Nora nodded, looking back down at the book in her lap. But shedidn’t open it. She was suddenly filled with emotion. No matter how much they’d butted heads the last year, her mother still wanted her to come home.
She just sat with her mother’s words.
Absorbing them along with the sunlight, the silence, and the soft vibrations of the engine.
She wanted to remember the feeling of her mother beside her, just driving.
Chapter Ten
A knock at the door startled Eleanor from sleep.
She sat up in bed, disoriented, her breath caught in her chest like a question. Unmoored, she swiveled her head slowly back and forth. Didn’t recognize the room—didn’t know where she was, what day it was. She didn’t even know who she was. Waves of panic washed over her as the pale motel wallpaper swam before her eyes, warped in the dim morning light.
But then, like a camera lens adjusting its focus, her identity and memories came rushing back.
The stage.
