Stevie drove into town, stopped at the diner and had a plate of nachos for lunch, and still had an hour to kill before her appointment with Fifi, so she went home—to the house where she had grown up. She parked in the driveway, got out of the van, and left the crutches behind again. The house was coming down. There was no doubt about that, but she wanted to spend just a little more time inside to say goodbye.

When she had unlocked the door, she turned the knob and pushed, but it wouldn’t budge. She had to get really tough with it but finally got it to open. Maybe that was an omen, she thought, something trying to tell her that she shouldn’t tempt fate by going inside again.

“I won’t stomp on the floor, and I will be careful,” she muttered as she gingerly stepped over the threshold.

The house was as cold as death, and the musty smell was even worse than it had been when she and Bobby had checked out the floor and drywall. “You really have died, haven’t you?” she said as she wandered back to her mother’s bedroom.

She was glad that she had taken all her mother’s clothing to a women’s shelter right before Christmas. There was no way she could have ever let strangers come into the house and go through her mother’s dresser drawers. But she was glad, too, that Pearl was going to get women she knew to come in and pack the kitchen stuff as well as what was salvageable out of the garage.

“I remember coming in from my senior prom and sitting in this rocking chair, Mama. You had gone to bed, and you were reading one of those thick romance books you loved. I told you that your Sunday school ladies would throw a hissy fit if they knew you were reading books like that”—Stevie smiled at the recollection—“and you told me that if it was all right with your father and all right with God, then you didn’t care what they thought.”

Stevie pulled back the lace curtains that now had mildew on the bottom. I should adopt that idea for my own, she thought. I’ll make things right with God and with Cody since we are trying to date, and everyone else can kiss my butt.

That’s not the way I said it. She could hear her mother giggling in her head.

“Nope, but it all means the same,” Stevie whispered.