Page 121 of Wreckage and Rain

"Take your time."

"I love him, Mama."

"I know, baby."

"I'm scared of how much."

She puts her hand flat on the back of my head, the way she did when I was small and the world was loud.

"I don't know if I'm doing the right thing."

"You don't have to know yet. You only have to know whether the man who is about to walk through that door is doing the work or pretending."

"He's doing the work."

"Then the right thing will come around. It always does."

I look at my mother across the booth. Sixty-two years old. Smells like vanilla and Crisco and the soap she uses at the prep sink. The most generous woman I have ever known. She has fed Colt Bennet in this diner since he was a teenager, and she will keep feeding him for as long as I let her, and the math of love in her face has never required a margin.

"Mama."

"Yes, baby."

"You always knew, didn't you?"

"That you would come back?"

"That I would come back."

"Yes, baby."

"How did you know."

"Because you came here when you were lost. You always come here when you're lost. The lost child comes home. The lost wife comes home. The lost grown woman comes home. I have been waiting for you in booth four your whole life."

I cry, finally. Quietly. Into the coffee. I did the hard thing today, I shook with it, and now that I'm somewhere safe, with the woman who made me, in booth four, the tears come.

Mama lets me cry. She doesn't wipe my face. She doesn't move from her side of the booth. She drinks her coffee and watches the parking lot through the window, like Daddy watches it, and the diner keeps breathing around us.

When I'm done, I blow my nose on the napkin. Mama is watching me.

"Pie?"

"Pie."

She gets up.

Comes back with a slice of pecan and two forks. She sits down across from me and picks one up.

"You did a hard thing today, baby."

"I know, Mama."

"Eat your pie."

Chapter 35: Earned

Colt