"It's about time you let me worry about myself."
"A few more days," she murmured, then pulling back, took his hand again and walked into the woods.
"I saw the white buck on the way through," she told him. "But nothing else. It felt good to walk here again. Peaceful. Simon was conceived in here. It's a good place, an important place for me."
"For both of us, then."
She walked the way she'd walked before, but there was no white buck, and no sense of import. When they came to the edge where the gravel began, she stopped again.
"I've got to go over and see my mother. You don't have to come."
"You don't want me to meet her?"
Staring at the trailers, she blew out a breath. "Maybe you'd better. Saturday's a busy day for her. She'll probably have customers, so we won't stay long."
He saw some children playing on a rusted swing set, and a Doberman mix tethered by a thick chain that barked at them as if it'd already tasted blood. From a trailer to the left came the sounds of voices raised in a vicious argument. And to the right, a little girl was perched on a rickety step, singing her baby doll to sleep.
She looked up and offered Bradley a slow and beautiful smile. "Time for Cissy's nap," she told him in a whisper.
He crouched, angling his head around to look at the doll. "She's very pretty."
"She's my sweet baby girl." As she spoke, the door opened behind her. A young woman stepped out, a dishrag in her hand and a cautious look in her eye.
"Can I help you?" She laid a hand on the little girl's shoulder.
"Just admiring Cissy," Brad said.
"I'm Crystal McCourt's daughter, Zoe." Understanding the mother's caution, Zoe stepped up to touch Brad's arm. "We're just dropping by to see her."
"Oh." She relaxed visibly. "Nice to meet you. You gave me a start, is all. Chloe knows she's not supposed to talk to strangers, but she can't seem to help it. She trusts everybody. Tell Mrs. McCourt I said hey, and thank her again for cutting Chloe's hair so nice."
"I will." As Zoe walked away, she heard the woman say, "Come inside with Mama, sweet baby girl."
"Some people make a good life here," she said quietly. "They plant little container gardens and have picnics in the summer."
"And some people live in palaces and can't make a good life. It's not where, it's how. And it's who."
Maybe, Zoe thought, that was one more thing she was meant to remember.
"That's ours. Hers. Ours." She dropped the hand she'd used to gesture to the dingy green doublewide. "I'm ashamed that I'm ashamed of this. And I hate myself for hating that you see this. She always said I had too much pride. I guess she was right about that."
"I guess you're not perfect, then. Maybe I don't love you after all."
She tried to laugh, but it got stuck in her throat.
"Are you going to introduce me to your mother, Zoe, or should I just go up and knock on the door myself?"
"She won't like you."
"You're not taking into account my incredible charm."
Noting the amused and confident tone, Zoe merely slid her gaze up to his face. "That's one of the things she won't like about you." Resigned, she started forward. She heard the chattering inside as she reached the door. Young voices, at least two.
Saturday morning drives into Saturday night, she thought. Date night. A couple of girls wanted to get done up for a night on the prowl. She knocked on the metal frame of the screen, squeaked it open, then gave the inner door a good nudge with her shoulder.
Three girls, she noted. One with her hair already plastered with stripper. Somebody was going blond. The second had her short do already coated and setting up, and a third waited her turn and was holding out a fashion magazine to show off a hairstyle.
They sounded like an excited flock of birds, then fell into silence, then into snorting giggles when they spotted Brad behind Zoe.
The place smelled of bleach, dye, smoke, and last night's dinner.
Crystal finished setting an egg timer on the counter, turned. Her eyebrows raised high. "Wind blew you back a second time in one month, and it ain't even my birthday." Her gaze shifted to Brad and held, speculatively.
"I was out this way. I wanted you to meet my friend, Bradley."
"Bradley. That's a silver-dollar name."
"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. McCourt."
"Too many people in here." She grabbed her cigarettes and her hot-pink Bic. "Goon outside."
"Ladies," Brad said to the girls, and the giggles erupted again as he stepped back.
"I can see you're busy," Zoe began.
"Good Saturday business today." When the door shut behind her, Crystal flicked on her lighter, blew out a stream of smoke. "The Jacobson girl wants her hair blond. Wants to be Britney Spears. Had herself a nice head of chestnut brown, too, but it's no never mind to me if she wants to ruin it."
"Is that Haley Jacobson? She was just a little thing the last time I saw her."
"She's sixteen. Same age as you when you ran off. She keeps sashaying around like she does, she'll get herself in trouble same as you did."
"I stopped thinking about it as trouble a long time ago." Zoe knew the girls were there, too, and that as her mother hadn't bothered to lower her voice, that they heard every word. "Simon's the best thing that ever happened to me."
"You said you weren't breeding again." The line etched between Crystal's eyebrows deepened as she shot another look at Brad. "You come to tell me different?"
"No. Bradley's, he's…" "Zoe and Simon are important to me," Brad said smoothly. "I wanted to meet you. Zoe told me you raised four children, mostly on your own. That must be where she gets her courage."
Fancy name, fancy looks, fancy talk, Crystal thought as she chuffed out smoke. "Doesn't take courage to raise kids. It takes a strong back."
"I imagine it takes both. You have a beautiful and amazing daughter, Mrs. McCourt. You must be very proud."
"Bradley. Silver-dollar name and a fancy manner. You want to take her on, that's your business." As if it didn't matter to her one way or the other, she jerked a thin shoulder.
"She's a good worker, and she breeds well. Doesn't whine much."
"I'll keep that in mind," Brad said equably, and made Crystal laugh in spite of herself.
"Maybe she's got better taste this time around. You don't look to be too much of an asshole."
"Thanks."
"You never tried to wiggle out of work," she said to Zoe with a hint of affection. "I'll give you that." On impulse, she reached out, touched Zoe's hair. "Good cut—got style. Anyway, you never were stupid, either. You got a chance for the high life here—'cause this one looks like the high life to me—you'd be a fool not to take it. A woman's got to take what she can get."
"Mama."
"I say what's on my mind, always have, always will." Crystal dropped the cigarette, crushed it under her shoe. "I gotta get back inside. Get a ring on your finger this time," she told Zoe, then tipped her chin at Bradley. "You could do worse."
She dragged the screen open, went back inside. And shut the door.
"It never comes out right. It just never does." Tears flooded Zoe's eyes and were ruthlessly blinked back. "We need to go."
She started toward the woods almost at a jog, kept her head down when Brad took her arm. "She doesn't understand you."
"That's not news to me."
"She doesn't understand the light inside you. Or that it's not about what you can get, it's about what you want to make. She doesn't understand you, so she doesn't know how to love you."
"I don't know what to do about it." "You keep trying, and it's going to hurt you. You stop trying, and it's going to hurt you." He ran his hands up and down her arms for comfort. "I understand you, Zoe, so I know which choice you'll make."
She looked back toward the trailer. "I'll come back at Christmastime and maybe… just maybe." Because she thought they both needed it, she worked up a smile. "I told you she wouldn't like you."