It took leaving to make the questions stop, but after having been gone for more than a decade, she was returning to Kipsen. Mira was driving home for the wedding of her childhood friend Celine, someone she now could say she barely knew.

Since Mira left, Celine had managed to make a life for herself. She’d gotten a cosmetology license and worked at the hair salon downtown. She had a series of regulars who tipped her well and she had managed to earn up enough to afford a semblance of a middle-class life, or at least play the part, enough so that when Phillip met her for the first time he didn’t see what the rest of the town used to—a poor trash girl who’d once lived in the black part of town.

Celine had called her a couple months ago out of the blue. Mira was sitting at her desk grading when she saw the flashing light from her desk phone. School had let out for the day, and while she could have gone home, she preferred to finish her work in the classroom, to not bring any remnants of the job with her when she left. She hesitated in picking up to take the call, worried it was her principal wanting to talk further about the incident with one of her students, but soon relented, fearing if he did want to talk it was better to get it over with.

When she answered, she found that it wasn’t the principal or anyone from the school calling, but Celine, and she was calling to say how she’d met the love of her life and was getting married. She wanted Mira to be there for her.

“It took me forever to find you. What kind of person isn’t on social media? You’ve done a good job of disappearing. Almost, anyway. Your school has this number listed on its directory and it came up when I searched for your name. Thank goodness I thought to do that. Oh, Mira, just say yes and I’ll send out the invitation. Look, I know we haven’t really talked in forever, but it’s my wedding.”

Mira sat back in her chair, overwhelmed by Celine’s exuberance and in how quickly she fell into an easy, unearned familiarity, as if it had always been this way between them, as if it was yesterday since they last talked and not years. Celine’s giggly and energetic voice ushered in Mira a slight pang of nostalgia for their shared past. “His name’s Phillip Hunnicutt. He’s from Kipsen, or at least his mother is. She married into the Hunnicut family and moved back after their divorce. Aldridge is her name.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”