Leanne watched Nora adjust the flower crown in her hair, humming a tune that sounded a lot like the one her grandmother had sung with Shep Moon. There was a peace about her now that hadn’t been there before, like someone who’d finally exhaled after holding their breath for too long.
Maybe they both needed this summer more than they ever realized.
Freckles and a suntan weren’t exactly fashionable in the suburban housewife set. They preferred pale skin, pink lipstick, and freshly pressed dresses—like they’d just stepped out of aWomen’s Daymagazine and into a casserole contest.
Leanne didn’t give a damn about that anymore.
This trip had cracked something open inside her. What had started as a quest to find her mother had morphed into something else entirely. A slow-burning revelation. A mirror held up to her life—not the polished version but the real one. And in that reflection, she saw a woman living for everyone but herself.
Well. Not anymore.
She still wasn’t entirely sure who she was, but she knew who she wasn’t.
Gone was the woman who ironed dress shirts and vacuumed in pearls. Who scrubbed the baseboards while dinner roasted and whose morning began with slicing grapefruit and ended with folding Dean’s socks into perfect little rolls.
She didn’t want to be a woman whose whole identity was in her roast chicken and her ability to poach a damn egg.
There were better things to do. Like wearing sandals and shorts and dancing in the rain. Like sleeping in. And God, when had she last done that? Not since Nora was born. Not since before secretarial school. Not even as a teenager. While other girls spent their Saturdays gossiping and painting their nails, she’d been up at six—reviewing vocab cards and ironing her pleated skirts.
Even her mother, in one of her rare moments of maternal clarity, had told her to relax. “You’ve got the rest of your life to be responsible, Leanne,” she’d said, swatting a record sleeve against her thigh. “You don’t get a second chance at seventeen.”
Leanne had rolled her eyes at the time, certain her mother was being ridiculous. Eleanor Bell Strickland giving out life advice? Please.
But now, standing here at forty-five, the music pulsing in the background and the scent of fried dough and cigarettes curling through the air, she finally understood.
Her mother had been right. The thing that scared her the most was how much time she’d spent trying to be perfect when what she really wanted was to feel something. To be someone.
And maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late.
She wanted to sleep in, dammit.
Not just on Saturdays. Not with one eye on the alarm clock and a to-do list already ticking in her brain. No—she wanted to wake up when her body felt like rising. To stretch luxuriously in a bed she didn’thave to make the minute she climbed out. Maybe she would wander barefoot onto the back patio with a mug of hot coffee and let the birds serenade her instead of the sound of her husband clearing his throat and asking where his tie was and when his toast would be ready.
Leanne wanted a life where she wasn’t poaching eggs for anyone but herself.
And wasn’t that something?
Onstage, Janis Joplin belted out “Summertime,” her voice raw and glorious, curling into the late-afternoon sky like a promise. The sun was low and golden, brushing everything with magic, making her believe life could be different.
Leanne swayed to the beat, the grass damp beneath her sandals, her cutoffs soft and worn. Beside her, Nora swayed too—smiling, yes, but also scanning the crowd with that dreamy, distracted look.
She was looking for Joe.
Leanne bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling too wide. Young, summer love. So intoxicating. So fleeting. So dangerous.
God, she hoped that young man didn’t break her daughter’s heart. Because Nora, for all her newfound fire and grit, still had that softness to her. That hopefulness. That trust. And heartbreak—well, that had a way of hardening a gal if she wasn’t careful.
Leanne had the scars to prove it.
She slid an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, pulling her close just for a second. Nora didn’t pull away. They both stood there in the golden light, mother and daughter, two women at two very different crossroads, both wondering what came next.
And for the first time in a long while, Leanne didn’t dread the question.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Nora was practically vibrating out of her sandals.
She couldn’t stand still. Her toes dug into the trampled grass, eyes darting over the sea of swaying bodies, scanning for one particular head of dark curls, for one crooked grin that made her stomach flip like a jukebox record.
