I’m not that fool anymore.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Faith
December 27th
The driveto Mom’s is only twenty minutes, but it feels like I’m crossing a border.
Like I’m leaving one life, again, for another that I haven’t fully remembered how to live.
The patched-up car rattles every few miles, coughing like an old smoker on every incline, but it holds. Boone’s handiwork, Clay’s stubbornness, Nash’s… commentary, I’m sure.
And Dallas.
Mostly Dallas.
I can practically feel his hands on every bolt, every hose, every patched crack.
Trees blur by in white-tipped rows. At one point, the wind shakes the car hard enough that I grip the wheel until my knuckles turn white. But the roads are clearer here, plowed by the county this morning, and eventually snow-covered pastures give way to the clusters of houses I grew up knowing by silhouette.
Mom’s neighborhood.
Mom’s street.
Mom’s tiny, yellow-sided house with the Christmas wreath she’s used since I was nine. The one with the pinecones that keep falling out because she refuses to replace it.
My breath catches.
Home.
Or something that used to be home.
I pull into the driveway, cut the engine, and sit as silence rushes in.
The porch light flicks on.
The door flies open.
And then Mom’s there. Hair still wrapped in the messy bun she sleeps in, wearing a giant sweatshirt and fuzzy socks, hand pressed to her chest. She’s afraid I might vanish if she blinks.
I stumble out of the car.
She meets me halfway.
“Faith,” she whispers, and then her arms are around me, pulling me into the warm, soft, familiar space between her shoulder and her neck.
“I’m okay,” I say, but the words shake.
She squeezes tighter. “No, you’re not. But you’re here.”
We stand like that for a long moment, snow falling in soft flakes around us, melting on her sweatshirt, catching in my hair. And then she cups my face, brushing away a tear with her thumb.
“Let’s get you inside, sweetheart. You must be frozen through.”
I grab my bag and follow her in.
The house is always the same.
