Night time was Mia’s favorite. All of her guests, the few that were there at the moment, were in their bedrooms. The newlyweds had left a couple of days before, and Dave was gone until next year. Now, she had a little down time to reflect on this new experience with her sister and niece.

But mostly she was thinking about her Momma tonight. She wanted to hug her, talk to her, ask her what to do with her life. She’d given the best advice in the world, and now Mia needed her more than ever. How would she ever be able to run the B&B and make it successful if she felt like such an imposter inside?

She was just a tiny country girl at heart, not some kind of business person. As she stared at the spreadsheet in front of her on the laptop, she wanted to cry, eat a pint of ice cream and curl up in a fetal position. Spreadsheets made her more anxious than the bears that roamed the woods around her property.

Needing her mother, she closed the spreadsheet and opened her video folder. One of her guests, a very tech savvy woman, had been kind enough to put all of her videos onto digital. She cherished that file more than just about anything because at least she could see and hear her mother. Often, she’d sit in her armchair, her mothers perfumed blanket in her hand, and watch those video clips while she sobbed. Not an effective therapy, most likely, but she’d felt the need to do it several times.

Sometimes, she yelled at God, asking why He took her away so soon. She was only fifty-four years old. It wasn’t fair. One day, if she was lucky enough to get married and have kids of her own, her mother wouldn’t be there. Every time she thought about it, she wanted to sob again. Life just wasn’t fair.

She opened the first video, one of her favorites. At the time, she was around ten years old. The video showed she and her mother trying to do cartwheels out in the front yard. Bobby was recording them and laughing in the background. Mia giggled as she watched it, remembering how goofy and spontaneous her mother could be.

Not that she didn’t worry or freak out from time to time. She was one of those people who smiled and kept it together for everyone else, but Mia would sometimes hear her crying alone when things got tough.

The next video was when Mia was sixteen and learning to drive. She smiled as she listened to her mother’s voice as they drove down the road. She was giving Mia tips on her driving skills, but encouraging her at the same time. She just had that way about her, where she could guide someone without making them feel stupid.