“I want you to show me around. Show me where you used to live. Where you worked. Show me where Peanut and Ruby live. Where Lovey lives. I am getting to know the people, but seeing where they live always says a lot more.”

“I would love to,” Melissa said, and slipped her hand in his as they walked back to the car.

The first place she took him was across the tracks to the other side of town to point out the little house she used to live in.

As he pulled over to the curb, he felt the stark absence of home. There were no flower beds, no landscaping. Just a small white house with a gray roof. Nothing over the front door that even pretended to be a porch, no garage, and no carport. Just a driveway that stopped beside the house.

“It’s the one with the black Toyota in the driveway. A young couple lives in it now. It’s a rental. I never thought I’d be able to buy a house, and then Elmer Mathis passed away, leaving everything to me. It was a life-changing gift I will never take for granted.”

Sully held her hand as she talked about losing part of the roof once in a tornado, and when the water heater went out and flooded the whole kitchen.

“You want to know the irony of this? My landlord was Niles Holland. The man who ran into me. I liked him.”

“In a small town like this, I can see how that would happen. I’m sorry,” Sully said.

“Okay, enough about me. As you can see, we’re on the poor side of town. If you’ll go back toward Main, I’ll show you where Peanut and Ruby live.”

And so they drove, and Melissa talked, and little by little Sully began to feel the vibe of the place in a whole new way.

“I already showed you where Lovey is living now, but it’s not her home. It belongs to Ruby. Lovey is just living there while hers is being remodeled. Her home was severely damaged during Hurricane Fanny. If you’ll take a right at the next corner, then go two blocks down, I’ll show you.”

“Got it,” Sully said, following her directions, then saw it before she’d even pointed it out. “Is that it? The one where the carpenters are working?”

“Yes. They had to put a whole new front on the south half of the house. There used to be a huge tree in her yard there where that backhoe is parked, but the hurricane blew it into that side of the house. The horrible part was that Lovey hadn’t boarded up the little window in her bathroom, and the town was flooding, so she went into the bathroom to look out the window. She was worried about how close the floodwater was, and as she was looking out, the tree hit the house, pushing all of that inward, right where she was standing.