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The night before I was scheduled to leave, I went outside our trailer and sat on the steps, looking blankly out at the sunset. I listened to the familiar sounds of home—the sway of trees, the whistling wind, the far-off scream-like noise bobcats make. Thoughts of bobcats made my heart dip and right then and there, I decided two things: one, I was going to succeed in California, no matter how hard it was, and two, I’d never fall in love again. Not ever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tenleigh

Four Years Later

There’s nothing like going home again, or so the saying goes. It was late afternoon when I got the first glimpse of those Appalachian Mountains outside the window of my car. I gripped the steering wheel. Despite nervousness and anxiety and a somewhat uncertain future, there was also a faint current of excitement flowing through my veins—a feeling that I was back where I belonged.

I rolled the window down as I turned off the highway and took a deep breath of the cool, pine-scented mountain air, so different from the warm, salty San Diego breezes I’d been breathing for the past four years while I was away at college. I hadn’t come home for summer or winter breaks, choosing instead to take classes year-round and graduate early. I’d stayed in San Diego a couple extra months to wrap up a few things with my student teaching and so I didn’t have to drive through winter weather to get home. And now here I was, the mountains just barely coming alive with spring. God, I’d missed Kentucky. An unexpected peace fell over me and my lips tipped in a smile when I turned up the mountain road to our trailer.

“Home,” I whispered. Everything was going to be okay. I was back because I had a goal. I had a purpose. And in that, I had succeeded.

As I drove uphill, my gaze flitted over the small, rundown houses sitting to the sides of the road. Surprisingly, some of them looked better than I’d remembered. Several of the people on the mountain had cleaned up their yards. Well, that was a welcome sight.

But all too soon, the anxiety hit full force as I turned the bend in the road, knowing I’d be driving past Kyland’s home in another minute. I purposely kept my eyes straight, not daring even a glance at the little blue house I knew was on my left. I turned at the next bend in the road and let out a long exhale as I pulled into the dirt clearing next to our trailer and sat in the car for several minutes, just looking at the only home I’d ever known until just a few years ago. But, oh, what a difference four years could make.

I’d left Kentucky broken and bruised, crushed in a way I thought I’d never recover from. But if time didn’t heal all wounds, at least it made them bearable. And I’d survived. I shut off the engine and then stretched my limbs as I stepped out of my small beater of a car—a dull red VW Rabbit that I’d bought for three thousand dollars. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but it was all I’d been able to afford. The truth was, I loved it. It was mine. It was the first thing I’d ever owned outright. I’d waited tables at a large chain restaurant in the evenings after classes, finally saving up enough money to buy my own transportation. It had just made the two-thousand-mile trip from California to Kentucky. I’d say I’d done a decent job picking a good one. Or more likely, I’d gotten lucky, but that was okay too.

I took a minute to look around, taking everything in as if it were the first time I was seeing it. The trailer looked just about the same as I remembered it—small and sad. But I felt a twinge of happiness nonetheless. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home,” I whispered. Humble was probably a generous word for our trailer, but it was still a soft enough place to land. And everyone had to land somewhere.

Still, I planned on getting my mama and sister out of here as soon as I could—somewhere bigger, more comfortable, somewhere where we could all have our own rooms.

My mama was in a psychiatric hospital in Lexington. Three years after I’d left, she’d had a particularly bad episode and thankfully, Sam had stepped in and offered to pay for her care in a really great facility. That was a relief because when I heard the news, I had planned to come home. There was no way Marlo could handle that by herself. I was actually surprised not only that Sam was still in Marlo’s life, but that she had agreed to let him pay, which spoke volumes about how bad it had been. Oh, Mama…