go nowhere, not the outlying ranches or the few small subdivisions. And certainly not the main street, captured in an early twentieth century kind of amber, a mixture of archaeological finds left over from the 1880s to a few newer World War II era buildings. The town had enjoyed a number of booms and a few busts, and the last bust still lingered, a kind of genteel poverty for all but a handful, who managed to prosper anyway.
Outside town, before she faced the sorrow of the main street, she saw a sign announcing the construction of a new ski resort. Another boom in the making, maybe, one that would change the character of the town yet again.
It needed some changing.
She hated coming back, but she had nowhere else to go. Not now.
The speed limit lowered, taking them along a flat stretch of road that boasted little but an occasional roadhouse. Closer to town, she saw the modernity of some new fast-food joints that didn’t appear to be doing well. That much modernity had arrived here, too. Even with so few people and despite the closing of the semiconductor plant that had been this town’s last boom. The ranchers hereabouts were barely enough to keep the place going.
“I saw it in the papers,” her father had said when he phoned, the first words he’d spoken to her in a decade. “Come home, girl.” An offer made too late, but one she had been unable to refuse with her life in ashes all around her.
What else could you do when the big bad world had treated you so horribly you were almost afraid to stick your nose out the door? What else could you do when you’d become famous—or infamous, depending—and the world wouldn’t leave you alone to lick your wounds?
He’d seen it in the papers. Even here. That meant Jake knew, too. All those sordid details.
Her hands tightened into fists until her knuckles turned white and her fingers ached. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Jake as he managed the town streets with the ease of familiarity.
A sharp right turn, then a left, and they were on the main street, a veritable visual essay of the town’s past, most of which seemed to have been a matter of aging as gracefully as possible.
They drove past the hulks of Freitag’s Mercantile on one side and the Lakota Hotel on the other. One busy and surviving, the other barely holding together as a sort of rooming house. Past her dad’s pharmacy, and then past the courthouse square and the sheriff’s office.
Past Mahoney’s saloon, with a history stretching back to the brief boom of the 1880s. No matter how good or bad the times, people always wanted drink. Even more so when times were bad.
Then a sharp left turn onto her dad’s street. Victorian houses, built on long narrow lots, lined the street, along with trees as old as the houses. People who had never lived here found it charming. It made Nora feel claustrophobic.
And finally, Jake pulled into the driveway behind her dad’s car, an old white Caddy he’d been nursing for so many years it was probably now an expensive collectible.
“Here we are,” he said, as if she wouldn’t know.
Only then did Nora realize that she was shaking, physically and emotionally. Stop it, she told herself. Stop it.
On joints that felt far older than her thirty years, she climbed out of the car, stiff and aching from the long drive.
If her dad had seen it in the papers, so had everyone else in town.
No escape.
Jake pulled all three of her bags out of the back of his car and dragged them up onto the porch ahead of her.
She climbed the front porch steps like a stranger instead of using the side door. Wood creaked beneath her weight, which was much less than even a few months ago. Like a stranger, she knocked, then put her fisted hands at her sides, waiting. She could almost feel eyes boring into her from the surrounding houses.
“See you around,” Jake said. She turned her head, watching as he climbed into his Jeep and drove off. Leaving her alone with the rest of her past.
Then the door opened and her dad faced her. The past ten years had taken a toll on him, too. Every one of them seemed to have etched itself deeply into his face, and his rotund figure had become lean. He regarded her steadily from blue eyes just like hers, shook his head a little.
“Come in, girl. It’s getting chilly. I’m making breakfast.”
Breakfast for dinner. His favorite meal. He turned and walked toward the kitchen, so she followed. A kind of numbness filled her as she moved through familiar rooms, the typical “gunshot” design, from front room through bedrooms to kitchen and bath. Only one addition gave any privacy, and it had always been her bedroom. Probably would be again.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the small table with its cracked plastic top and four chairs that were older than she was.
She sat and let him pour her a steaming mug of coffee. He placed it in front of her and she reached for it, realizing she needed some kind of warmth and fortification for whatever was coming.
At last her body began to react to her environment rather than her fear and anger. She smelled the sizzling bacon, the coffee, the bread browning in the toaster. Good smells. Not everything about home was bad.
But very little of it was good.
Her dad kept his back to her as he worked at the gas stove. Rude? Unwelcoming? Or just her dad at his oblivious best? What had she expected? A hug?
Of course not. Too much lay between them, both time and events. Even though she had accepted his invitation with huge reluctance, she suspected he had offered it with even more. Angry words, fights, accusations. Too much history.
And maybe not enough.
She still couldn’t understand why he had called her to come home. The only reason she could imagine was that everyone knew what had happened. God forbid he should look uncharitable to the church that was the center of his life.
“How’s everyone?” she asked finally.
“About the same.” He didn’t even glance her way. Then the first prick. “’Course, you been away awhile.”
“Yes.”
He made up the plates with eggs, toast and bacon and brought them to the table, placing one in front of her. She realized she still wore her coat, so she slipped it off and hung it over the back of her chair while her dad grabbed some flatware.
He sat across from her and bowed his head, saying grace. He didn’t ask her to join him, though once he would have insisted. These days she didn’t feel like giving thanks for much of anything.
Her dad spoke as he spooned marmalade onto a slice of toast. “Jody said you should stop by.”
Jody, her best friend during all the growing-up years until Nora had finally left town for good. Once they had dreamed together of escaping to the larger world. Only Nora had escaped. “How’s she doing?”
“Pretty busy with four kids.”
“Four?”
Her dad let his gaze skim her way. “Two boys, two girls. Married
