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Beggars really can’t be choosers.
Still, I wish I’d been a little choosier as I wrestle the boxy van onto the road and set out for a small town of only twenty thousand people called Northfield. It’s only a forty-five-minute drive, but I nearly chip a tooth as the van rattles over potholes left behind by another grueling Minnesota winter.
I don’t know how people live in this state.
I also don’t know if it’s the shocks or the suspension, but this thing needs service.
Only Aunt Clara would drive me to this.
Clara—and yes, dammit, Elle.
All so I can try to fix this. So I can save Little Key.
So I can prove I can get over my bullshit.
Enough to tell the truth when I tell Elle I love her and I trust her.
And I’m sorry as hell for exiling her from my life the way I did, when she’s all that’s worth holding on to.
The address the investigator found leads me to a small brick house on a cozy lane with a tidy fenced yard. In the back is a chicken coop, true to the PI’s word.
The chickens roam contently, a mundane backdrop to my frantic pulse as I park, get out, and walk to the gate.
I don’t have her phone number, so I couldn’t call to let her know I was coming.
This might be a very unpleasant surprise.
I scrub my hands against my thighs and step up the walk to knock on the door.
“Just a minute!” a woman calls ahead of footsteps pattering toward me to answer.
As the door opens, I’m struck by a memory.
The same face, petite with silvery red hair in the same braid.
Only, back then she was younger.
Dinner over Aunt Clara’s sketches.
Me, organizing her colored pencils, and this friendly face helping Clara in the kitchen. Deb underfoot wanting to help, too, but just banging giant spoons everywhere.
Me, thinking they were so noisy, but it was the kind of noise I loved, and when this woman laughed, Aunt Clara laughed too.
They looked at each other so warmly—warmer than Mom and Dad ever did before the accident.
Their secret smiles made everything feel like home.
I stare at her with my heart stalling.
“I remember you,” I say weakly.
Yvette Sullivan shakes her head, smoothing her hands over her flower-patterned blue cotton dress. “I’m sorry, who?” She stops, her eyes widening. She looks at me hard, her fingers fluttering to her mouth. “August? Little August Marshall? Is that you, all grown up?”
How had I forgotten?
Back then, I’d been too young to understand.
I just thought she was another old friend of Aunt Clara’s who came over to help.
