make it to Bassville. The Trans-Canada was a good highway to travel on, but it was boring. Now she had nothing to keep her mind from wandering.
Lily stopped for fuel in Moose Jaw. She was about to order a coffee at the counter when she caught a whiff of the roasted beans. Her stomach rolled. She turned quickly away and grabbed a coke from the fridge instead before heading back out to her truck.
She made her way back onto the highway and turned up the music. She fiddled with the radio for a few moments until she found what she liked and turned it up a notch louder.
Wade, her boyfriend from high school, loved to have the radio cranked.
She quickly turned it down. She did not want to think about Wade.
She drove in near silence for the next half an hour, but as though called, Wade kept creeping into her thoughts. She couldn’t shake him out of her mind. Snippets of scenes from years past flashed in quick succession. Her and Wade racing their horses across the hills; throwing snowballs at each other until it ended in kisses hot enough to melt the snow; losing their virginity together; driving to prom. Tears started falling down her checks. That last memory was bittersweet. She knew she was leaving; he didn’t. Wade was all smiles that day, never leaving her side. She could still feel the ghost of his hand on her back as he guided her through the crowd. She missed his touch. She missed him so much it hurt. And yet it was her fault she was missing him. It was Lily that drove away. She always made damn sure when she went home for a holiday that she stayed away from anywhere she might bump into him. Maybe he thought she was a bitch, but the truth was, she didn’t think she could survive if she saw him.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks. There was no use crying now. The past was the past. She needed to remember that to get through the next few days. She was heading into a storm she’d been putting off for eight years. She needed to have all her wits about her, and thinking about Wade would make her too vulnerable. She reached down, cranked up the volume on the radio and pushed from her mind all thoughts of the boy she’d left behind.
*
Three bags of Doritos, four cans of Coke Zero and seven hours later, Lily finally reached the outskirts of Bassville. The red and the orange of the sun colored the hills on the road in front of her. The mountains in the background were purple in the evening light.
Her back was sore and her bum was numb, but she smiled. She was finally here. She turned off the highway, skirted the town and headed down a familiar dusty gravel road. Remnants of snow drifts lay as brown crusty bumps in the ditch. The two boxes next to her bumped around on the seat, slamming into her thigh with every lurch of the truck. She’d have a bruise come morning, but she was almost there and she didn’t care. Less than two country songs later she pulled into a short, tree-lined driveway. A magnificent white homestead cheerfully greeted her as she rounded the last corner. Lights shone from the windows, welcoming her home.
The door opened and a quintessential home-grown country girl stood in the light of the doorway for a moment before she hurried down the steps. Lily watched as she half skipped, half ran towards the truck. Lily threw open her door, jumped out and met her halfway. Lily threw her arms around her friend and together they bounced up and down in a circle squealing like a couple of schoolgirls until Lily was gasping for breath and had a stich in her side.
Once they’d finally stumbled to a stop, her friend grasped Lily’s arms and looked her right in the eye, “My God Lil, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
Lily sniffed and wiped the tears from her lashes. “Charmaine,” she whispered, “I missed you.”
Charmaine threw her head back and laughed. “Ah, Lily I missed you too, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t call.”
Lily didn’t dare look away from Charmaine, she was a master at reading body language, but Lily knew Charmaine could read the thoughts swirling around behind her eyes.
Charmaine raised an eyebrow. “Umhmm.” she said, clearly knowing something was up, but to Lily’s astonishment, she didn’t ask questions. “Come on inside and I’ll make you a cup of tea.” She linked her arm through Lily’s and led her up the steps to the house. “Do your parents know you’re home?” she asked as she opened the front door.
Lily stumbled slightly. Her parents.
“No,” she murmured. Her parents were going to kill her.
Lily reminded herself that she was too old to worry about what her parents thought.
But she was still their daughter and she hated it when she disappointed them. She hated when they disappointed her too. Not visiting very often had its advantages. She chuckled slightly under her breath. Thank God they didn’t know everything she’d been up to – or rather, what she hadn’t been up to for the last eight years. Otherwise they’d have discovered she was just one great big disappointment.
She’d left town, well fled really, straight out of high school to make it big in Toronto. Her eyes had been filled with stars and she was determined to become one of them. Ha! It didn’t take long for those stars to fade as she was acquainted with reality. A string of dead-end jobs and equally dead-end boyfriends only proved to her that she was nothing better than the small town girl she was desperate to escape becoming when she had left Bassville to begin with.
“I couldn’t believe it when you called, you must have been just down the road,” Charmaine interrupted her not-so-joyful reminiscing. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner you were coming home? Not that I mind, of course I don’t. But Georgie’s room is a disaster, and that’s the only spare space I’ve got. You don’t mind do you?”
“She doesn’t mind?” Lily asked, following Charmaine down the stairs into the basement.
“Oh she’s fine in with Rebecca. They actually get along really well, at least most of the time. Not sure why we gave them their own rooms in the first place. Twins like to be together, you know?”
The basement had changed from the last time Lily had been in there. The walls were no longer the God-awful dark wood paneling of Charmaine’s youth, but a soft cream paint showcasing her children’s framed artwork. Lily stopped to admire the bright orange and yellow suns and purple trees hanging on the walls. They brought a smile to her face and made her stomach clench in fear. Would she even have a house to hang her baby’s artwork in?
She gave herself a shake and followed after Charmaine. It wasn’t just the basement’s color scheme that had changed in her absence. Walls had been knocked down and it was now a large open space. The orange shag carpet was gone as well, her feet sank into the new red wool carpet and she longed to kick off her shoes and dig her bare toes into the plush pile. The light was coming from recessed lights set into the low ceiling; no more dodging hanging light fixtures.
“In here,” Charmaine opened a door at the far end of the room and held it for Lily, patiently waiting for her to catch up.
“You’ve done renovations. They’re nice.” Lily took one last look around the large room before following Charmaine into the bedroom.
Lily peered around Charmaine’s shoulder. She hadn’t been kidding when she said it was a mess. Clothes were strewn from one end to the other, absolutely covering every surface. What was lurking underneath the clothes remained to be seen.
“Oh God,” Charmaine groaned, “I didn’t realize it was this bad. I try not to come in here very often. It raises my blood pressure.” She stood in the doorway for a moment, took a deep breath and started picking
