In time, I realized the Volvo and I were both low on fuel.

It probably means something that I hit the gas pump first, before forcing myself inside the Happy Trails Truck Stop. One of these days, I’ll check out the Damn Fool’s Guide to Freudian Psychology, if there is one.

I had no memory whatsoever of the diner. Nothing stirred as I walked in, took one of the stools at the counter, reached for a plastic-covered menu. Just the same, I knew my mother had run her feet off waiting tables there, doing her best to make ends meet and always falling just a few dollars short.

My stomach closed like a fist, but I was light-headed and shaky, which meant I needed to eat, whether I wanted to or not. The Volvo wouldn’t run on empty, and neither would my brain.

I consulted the listed offerings.

A waitress in blue jeans and a tank top appeared across the narrow expanse of Formica, with its metal napkin holders, plastic ketchup bottles and salt and pepper shakers. “Help ya?” she asked.

I looked at her over the top of the menu. She could have been any age between nineteen and thirty. Her skin bore the traces of an old case of acne, and I counted seven piercings in her right ear. Her brown hair was thin, the kind that falls into roller shapes no matter how much you tease and spray. I wondered what her life was like—if there were kids at home, if she worked to support some loser boyfriend or undermotivated husband, the way my mother had.

I ordered coffee, orange juice and poached eggs on toast.

Was I like my mother?

Was I like my dad?

Who the hell was I, anyway?

Right then, I felt about as real as Nick.

I forced myself to eat most of the food, paid the bill and left.

Still too early to leave for Tucson, and my cell phone was silent.

I scrolled back to the text message, fortified by breakfast.

U-WLL-DY.

Catchy.

Also chickenshit. Up there with sending nasty e-mails and then blocking the reply, so the flamed can’t fight back.

I tossed the cell back into my purse and headed for the high school. In these post-Columbine days, a person can’t just walk into the nearest institute of lower learning and snoop around, so I followed presumed protocol and stopped off at the office. The secretary had probably been around since the Reagan administration, if not longer, and she went pale when I introduced myself and added that I was Evie Larimer’s daughter.

Right then, I wasn’t up to claiming Ron.

“Mary Josephine?” the woman trilled, looking up from the driver’s license I’d given her as ID. She had blue hair, four chins, and wore a vintage polyester pantsuit. Either she shopped on eBay, or she didn’t shop at all.