She heard the tap of a woodpecker, and the sigh of wind through empty branches. And then she saw the white buck standing, watching her with eyes of sapphire blue.
"Oh, my God." She sat where she was, afraid to move. Afraid to breathe.
Both Malory and Dana had seen a white deer, she remembered, what Jordan had called a traditional element of a quest. But they'd seen the buck at Warrior's Peak, not in a narrow strip of West Virginia woods.
"This means I was right, I was supposed to come here. It must mean I'm right. But what do you want me to do? I want to help. I'm trying to help."
The buck turned his head and walked away down the rough path. With her knees trembling, Zoe rose to follow.
Had she once dreamed of this? she wondered. Not this exact thing, not of following the path of a white buck, but of magic and wonder and the wish to do something important.
Dreamed, she admitted, of doing something that would take her away from here, away from the tedium and the despair of not being able to see the world beyond these woods.
Had she looked to James for that? Had she loved him, or simply seen him as an escape?
She stopped, pressed a hand to her heart in a kind of shock. "I don't know," she whispered. "I really don't know."
The buck looked back at her, then gathered himself, leaped over the rocky banks of a small creek, and bounded away.
Hoping that she understood, Zoe took the left fork, walked out of the woods and onto the packed gravel of the trailer park.
Like the woods, it had changed little. Different faces, perhaps, different units here and there. But it was still lined with homes that would never grow roots.
She heard radios, televisions—the hum and blare of them dancing out of windows—the sound of a baby crying in short, fitful wails, and the gun of an engine as someone drove out of the park.
Her mother's place was a dull, pale green, with a white metal awning over the side door. The car parked next to it had a dented fender.
She hadn't taken the summer screen off the door yet, Zoe noted. It would make a harsh squeaking sound when you opened it, a slapping sound as you let it go. She climbed the stacked cinder blocks her mother used as steps, and knocked.
"Come on in. I'm setting up." The screen squeaked as Zoe opened it, and the inner door stuck a bit as she turned the knob. She gave it a little shove, and let the screen slap closed behind her as she went inside.
Her mother was in the kitchen, where she made her living. The short counter by the stove was crowded with bottles, bowls, a plastic box full of colorful rods for setting a perm, a stack of hair towels, frayed at the ends from countless washings.
The coffeepot was on, and a cigarette smoked in an ashtray of green glass.
She looked too thin, was Zoe's first thought, as if life had carved her down to the bare essentials. She wore snug jeans and a skinny black top that only emphasized the sharp angles. Her hair was cut short, and she was wearing it in a hot red these days.
Her bedroom slippers scuffed the floor as she poured coffee with her back to the door. And were worn, Zoe knew, for comfort.
She was setting up to do a perm, and would be on her feet for a while.
The television across in the living area was tuned to one of the morning talk shows that seemed to thrive on anger and grief.
"You're running early or I'm running late," Crystal said. "I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet."
"Mama."
Mug in hand, Crystal turned.
She'd made up her face already, Zoe noted. Her lips were red, her lashes thick with mascara. Despite the cosmetics, her skin looked tired and old.
"Well, hell, look what the wind blew in." Crystal lifted the mug and drank as her gaze slid past her daughter. "You bring the boy?"
"No. Simon's in school."
"Nothing wrong with him?"
"No, he's doing fine."
"With you?"
"No, Mama." She stepped over, kissed Crystal's cheek. "I had something I had to do out this way, and I thought I'd come see you. You've got an appointment coming?" " 'Bout twenty minutes."
"Can I have some coffee?"
"Help yourself." Crystal scratched her cheek as she watched Zoe reach overhead for another mug. "You just happened to have business out here? I thought you were starting your big fancy place over there in Pennsylvania."
"I am, though I don't know if I'd call it big and fancy." She kept her voice upbeat and struggled to overlook the suspicion, and the criticism, in her mother's. "Maybe you could drive over sometime and take a look. We should be open in just a few more weeks."
Crystal said nothing. Zoe hadn't expected her to. She just picked up the cigarette and took a long drag.
"How's everybody?"
"Getting on." Crystal shrugged a shoulder. "Junior's still working for the phone company, doing right well. He knocked up that woman he lives with."
Zoe's cup clattered against the counter. "Junior's going to be a daddy?"
"Seems like he is. Says he's gonna marry her. I expect she'll make his life a misery."
"Donna's all right, Mama. They've been together more than a year now. They're going to have a baby," Zoe said softly, and smiled at the idea of her baby brother being a father. "Junior was always good with babies. He's got a gentle way with them."
"Like a baby's just gonna make everything all peaches and cream. 'Least Joleen's not looking to start popping them out right off."
Determined, Zoe kept the smile on her face. "Are she and Denny settling in all right?"
"They both got work and a roof over their heads, so they got nothing to complain about."
"That's good. And Mazie?"
"Don't hear from her much now she's got that place of her own down in Cascade. Thinks she's pretty high and mighty since she went to business school and works in an office."
What made you so sour? Zoe wondered. What turned you so hard? "You should be proud, Mama. Proud that all four of your children are making their way. You gave us the means to."
"Don't see any of them coming around here thanking me for working my ass off more'n twentyfive years so they could have food in their bellies and clothes on their backs." "I'm here to thank you for it."
Crystal let out a snort. "What do you want?"
"I don't want anything. Mama—"
"You couldn't get away from here fast enough. Nothing was ever good enough for Queen Zoe. Got yourself pregnant from that highfalutin Marshall boy thinking you'd buy your way into the good life. He shook you off right quick, didn't he, and what'd you do but take off hoping to land in another pot of gold."
"Some of that's true," Zoe said calmly, "and some of it isn't. I wanted to get away from here, I wanted something better. I'm not ashamed of that. But I never thought of my baby as a ticket to a better ride. I worked hard for you, Mama, and I worked hard for Simon and for myself. And I made something. I'm still making something."
"That don't make you better. That don't make you special."
" Ithink it does. I think it makes me better than the people who don't buckle down and take care of their own. That's what you did. You took care of your own, the best you could, and that makes you special. I know how hard it is to raise a child," she continued while Crystal stared at her. "How hard, and how scary it is to raise that child, and worry about him and work to figure out how to pay the bills and just keep it all going with nobody to help."
Another car started up, with a frantic backfire. "I only have Simon, and there were times I just didn't know what I was going to do next, times when I didn't know how I'd make it to the next morning, much less the next week. You did it with four of us. I'm sorry if I made you feel I didn't appreciate it. Maybe I didn't appreciate it enough when it was going on. I'd like to thank you for it now."
Crystal stubbed out her cigarette, folded her arms across her chest. "You pregnant again?"