was sorry she had left, because walking up the driveway the first time had been hard enough.
“Hello? Are you still here?”
Janine whirled at the sound of her daughter’s voice somewhere behind her. She started toward the sound, picking up speed as Harmony called again. “Hello!”
“I’m right here,” Janine managed. “I’m coming.”
She rounded the corner and saw her daughter’s familiar figure half loping toward her, the tall, slender body, the long blond hair flying out behind her. She forgot she had ever been frightened that Harmony would reject her. She forgot she’d had serious qualms about coming to Asheville, because now Rex might find their daughter. She could only think that this was her beloved child, whom she had feared she would never see again. And somehow they had been given this moment.
“Mom!” Harmony paused a moment as if making sure she was right. Then her face lit up. “Mom! It really is you!”
They were in each other’s arms in a moment. Janine was laughing, but she felt tears running down her cheeks, too. “Harmony. I thought...I thought—”
“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.” Harmony held her away but gripped Janine by the shoulders. “I thought you were dead!”
Janine had hoped Harmony wouldn’t learn about the fire, but the fear that she might hear of it had brought her to Asheville. In the end she had realized she had to prove, in person, she was still alive.
“I’m okay. I—” There was so much. Where did she start? Janine realized she was floundering.
“But the house burned to the ground,” Harmony said. “I just found the story on the internet. You weren’t there when it exploded?”
“I was... I mean I wasn’t. I was there when the fire started, but I got out.”
“Was Dad there?”
Janine couldn’t tell from Harmony’s tone what she hoped the answer might be. “No, he was... I don’t know where your father was. Is. I don’t know a thing except that I used... Well, he didn’t come home that night. I—I’d already made plans to leave him, but not quite this soon. Things weren’t quite in—” She stopped.
“You’d made plans?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk? I can’t stay more than the night, but there’s so much—” Janine couldn’t seem to finish a sentence. She was drinking in her daughter’s lovely face.
“What do you mean, you’re not staying?” Harmony tightened her grip on her mother. “Of course you’re staying. Please don’t tell me you’re going back to Kansas.”
“No. No! It’s just—” Janine shivered.
“I’m sorry. You’re cold. We can go up to the house.” She shook her head. “No, we’ll go to my apartment because it’ll be quieter, but I have to get Lottie first.”
“Lottie? Is she...?” Janine’s voice trailed off. The question she’d been about to ask seemed inconceivable, but she knew so little about Harmony’s life. She knew there must be a baby, but not whether the child was a boy or a girl.
“Lottie’s my daughter,” Harmony said, rescuing her. “Charlotte Louise, but she’s Lottie Lou or mostly just Lottie.”
“Who’s taking care of her?”
“Rilla has her. Rilla’s my employer. I live and work here as her assistant.”
“It’s so beautiful. The land. The house.”
“You look tired, Mom. Let me take that.” Harmony hooked a hand under the strap of the backpack and tested the weight. “It’s heavy.”
“Because I have Buddy’s scrapbook inside, but it’s, it’s...” She didn’t want to explain all the details of how she’d gotten away.
“Buddy’s scrapbook?” Harmony seemed surprised.
“It’s all I had left of him.”
Harmony slipped the backpack down Janine’s arm, and Janine gratefully relinquished it. With the loss of twenty pounds had come a significant loss of strength. And the last week had exhausted her.
“Lottie.” Janine managed a smile. “It’s beautiful. I bet she’s beautiful.”
Harmony slung the pack over one shoulder and began walking back the way she’d come. “How did you find me?”
What little energy Janine had was flagging dangerously. She touched her daughter’s hair and catalogued the obvious changes. Harmony had a gold stud in her nose and several piercings in each ear. Her hair was longer. “I need to sit. Can we talk when we’re settled?”
“I’m sorry. Of course. I’ll show you where my place is, and you can wait there. It’s no farther than the house. I’ll get Lottie and join you.” She hesitated. “You won’t leave? You’ll be there waiting?”
“I promise.”
They had reached the farmyard, and Harmony pointed to a building that looked like a garage, tucked not far from the house. “My apartment’s at the top, and the door is never locked. We’ll be right there to join you. I’ll make you hot tea.”
“With lots of milk and sugar?” Janine tried to smile, because whenever she and Harmony had been given the gift of time alone together, that was one of the ways they had celebrated.
“All you want.”
Janine started toward the apartment. Beyond it in a fenced pasture two horses grazed, one lifting a dark head to watch her. In the distance she saw what looked like a garden, although she couldn’t tell for sure because the sky had grown darker in the brief time she’d been here. The garage was painted the same dark spruce as the house, but the stairwell and the garage doors were painted a red so dark it was slowly turning black as twilight descended. Someone, maybe even her daughter, had planted a wide bed of black-eyed Susans and coneflowers along the side of the stairs.
She was so grateful Harmony had landed in this healing place, but she knew so little, not what had brought Harmony here, or how she had coped until she had a job and a place to live. Until now she hadn’t even known her grandchild’s name.
Instead of going upstairs, she sat on the bottom step and listened to the music of crickets as the sky quickly darkened. From the house she thought she heard the voices of children. How old was Lottie? Certainly not old enough to be one of them. Did Harmony help care for the others, too? So many questions, and even if they stayed up talking all night, so little time for answers.
The front door opened, and Harmony came out carrying a child with a blanket thrown around her against the chill of the descending night. As she watched, Harmony turned and spoke to a woman who was now standing in the doorway. Then she started toward her apartment.
Janine stood and waited for them to join her. When Harmony got close enough she pulled back the blanket, and Janine glimpsed her granddaughter for the first time. She immediately saw the resemblance.
“She looks like my baby pictures,” Janine said, reaching out to pull the blanket back a little more. “And she looks so much like you, although her hair’s darker.”
“Rilla warned me the woman waiting for me might be my mother. She said we looked so much alike. All of us. That’s how she knew.”
Janine didn’t ask to hold Lottie, but Lottie held out her arms to her grandmother, and without a word Harmony boosted her closer so Janine could see her better.
“Oh, you are such a beautiful baby,” Janine said, tears filling her eyes again. “And I guess after what I just said about her, that’s bragging, right?”
“She wants you to hold her.”
“May I?”
“Who better?”