A Mother's Homecoming Read Free Page A

of her attempted recovery, here she was seeking Mae.
    The waitress returned with two glasses of water andoffered a menu to Violet, who glanced questioningly across the table. Pam shrugged. Violet was harmless enough and no doubt could fill in some of the blanks about life in Mimosa since Pam’s departure.
    â€œYou mentioned mothers,” Pam said awkwardly once the waitress had gone with Violet’s order. “Do you, um, remember mine?” Colorful at best and a drunken home-wrecker at worst, Mae was nothing if not memorable. Pam felt the best way to bring the woman into conversation was slowly. No telling how many townsfolk had legitimate axes to grind.
    â€œMae Wilson. Of course.” Surprisingly Violet’s expression softened. “My condolences on her passing.”
    â€œPassing?”
The clatter of the diner fell away, drowned out by the pounding in Pam’s ears. Although she’d earlier allowed the snarky thought about Mae breaking her neck inside her house—which now struck her as in incredibly poor taste—she hadn’t for a second believed it. Mae had once totaled a boyfriend’s car and walked away without a scratch on her.
    Besides, this was her mother. Wasn’t there some sort of psychic umbilical cord? The woman who had brought her into this world and raised her had died. Ceased to exist. Wouldn’t Pam have experienced at least a minor twinge?
    Maybe you were too wasted to notice the twinge.
    Violet pressed a hand to her heart, and Pam lip-read her words more than heard them. “You didn’t know? My God. I’m so sorry. I thought …”
    Blindly, Pam grabbed the glass in front of her and instinctively tossed some of its contents down her throat. Instead of the burn of whiskey she still half expected on some base, cellular level, there was only tepid water. It took her a moment to reorient.
    Right, she didn’t drink whiskey anymore.
    And Mae Danvers Wilson wasn’t alive anymore.
    I’m too late.
    Perhaps it was hypocritical to feel devastated by the loss of a mother she’d barely known even when they shared a house. Having not interacted with Mae in years, it was silly to think that not doing so now would truly affect her day-to-day life. But to drive all this way, to have rehearsed and rehashed and wondered for hundreds of miles how her olive branch would be received …
    â€œWh-what happened?” Pam’s question seemed to echo from a distance.
    â€œI heard liver failure.” Violet ducked her gaze. “I’m so sorry, Pam. I knew you didn’t make it back in time for the funeral, but … Earlier this summer your aunt and uncle hired someone to find you. I thought maybe that’s what brought you to town.”
    â€œMy aunt and uncle.” Pam swallowed. “They were going to be my next stop after dinner.”
    â€œThe Calberts?” Violet was practically trembling with discomfort, her gaze darting around as if she wished she could flee. “Oh, honey, they’re not home. Your aunt was gone for a long weekend, one of those craft shows she does in the next county. I know because Cora’s been watering all their outside plants while … Listen to me prattling on. I’m so—”
    â€œNo, it’s fine,” Pam said. But of course it wasn’t. What a horrible thing to say. Her mother was dead and she was blurting “it’s fine”? She just hadn’t wanted Violet to keep apologizing.
    â€œI think they’re getting back tomorrow sometime,” Violet offered.
    Pam bit her lip. “Could you maybe recommend agood place for me to stay the night?” Should she admit what kind of budget she was on? No doubt that would elicit more pity.
    â€œA couple of those big hotel chains have places out by the highway.”
    â€œI was thinking more … quaint.”
    â€œWell, Trudy rents rooms, by the night or longer, in that faux mansion of hers on