And now here they were, standing face-to-face, staring at each other across an eight-year void. Lizzy longed to look away. To walk away. To go back into the house and bolt the door. It was ironic. How many times had she grumbled that it should be Rhanna dealing with all this? And now she was here, all the way from sunny California, trying to nudge her way in.
Andrew cleared his throat, breaking the silence. “I’ll get her bags from the truck.”
“I never said she was staying.”
“She’s your mother, Lizzy.”
Lizzy stared at him, stung by the rebuke. Had he forgotten her swim in the town hall fountain? The episode at the coffee shop? She glanced back at Rhanna in her bell-bottoms and beads, in her fifties now. A wilted flower child. And family, if blood counted for anything. Was she really capable of turning her own mother away? Of treating her the way Salem Creek had treated so many Moons over the years—as a pariah? She was pretty sure the answer was yes. Rhanna had washed her hands of the Moons years ago. Now she could live with it.
“One night,” she conceded frostily, stepping back to let Rhanna enter. “One. And then you’re out.”
Rhanna seemed almost wary as she stepped into the front parlor, arms pinned tight to her chest, as if she didn’t trust herself to touch anything. “It’s the same,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “All of it—exactly the same.”
The uncharacteristic show of emotion took Lizzy by surprise. Soppy had never been Rhanna’s style. But then there were a lot of things about Rhanna that had changed. The way she smelled, for instance, like bonfires and tea leaves, rose petals and rain. The combination was as unfamiliar as it was unsettling—a blur of pagan and gypsy, layered with the loamy scent of wet earth—and sharply at odds with the woman she remembered.
“Andrew told me how it happened,” Rhanna said quietly. “How Althea got sick, I mean. I would have come back if I’d known. I would have been here.”
A nod was all the response Lizzy could muster. She’d said the same thing to Evvie the night she arrived, and wondered if Evvie had been as skeptical then as she was now. “What about you, Rhanna? Are you . . . well?”
“I’m well enough.”
“Are you lying?”
“Would you care if I was?” Rhanna smiled sadly when Lizzy didn’t answer immediately. “On second thought, don’t answer that. I’m fine. Things have just been a little tight lately. And it’s a long walk from Cali.”
Lizzy was about to respond with something snarky when she heard the mudroom door bang shut.
“I thought I heard voices . . .”
Evvie’s words dried up when she saw Rhanna. For a moment no one spoke. Lizzy watched as Evvie and Rhanna locked eyes, the air between them charged with unspoken questions. She could see by the look on Evvie’s face that no introduction was necessary. No one looking at Rhanna could mistake her for anyone but a Moon. Still, she had to say something.
“Evvie, this is Rhanna—my mother.”
Rhanna’s bags turned out to be an army-green knapsack and a badly scarred guitar case. Andrew hovered in the foyer, the knapsack clutched to his chest, the guitar slung over his shoulder. “Where should I put them?”
Lizzy flashed him a look of exasperation. She wasn’t anywhere near ready to think about sleeping arrangements. He of all people should know how this was likely to end. Which made it worse somehow that he’d been the one to drop her on the doorstep, like a stray puppy she was expected to keep whether she wanted it or not.
They were all looking at her now—Andrew, Evvie, Rhanna—waiting for her to say something that would ease the tension. They’d be waiting a long time. “Leave them right there,” she told Andrew grudgingly. “Near the door. I’ve got the supper to finish.” And with that, she turned and walked away, praying that no one followed her.
In the kitchen, she took a gulp of her now-tepid wine, then picked up her knife. She needed time to absorb this new development, and figure out what happened next. She had more than enough on her plate. She didn’t need a drama queen with a predilection for meltdowns added to the mix. And that’s precisely what she’d get if Rhanna was allowed to hang around any length of time.
While generations of Moon girls had grown up knowing the risks of making waves, Rhanna had honed the subtle art of not giving a damn, of poking a finger in the eye of convention, creating a scene, saying the unthinkable. Like the time she’d been suspended for reading tarot cards in the school talent show and predicting that her PE teacher would be discovered rolling a joint in the janitor’s supply closet. Or the time she’d painted a peace sign with a middle finger in the center, on the wall of the First Presbyterian rectory. Recklessness and rebellion. Those were Rhanna’s superpowers. And now she’d brought them back to Salem Creek.
One night, Lizzy reminded herself as she downed another sip of wine. That was all she’d promised. And what then? By the look of things, Rhanna didn’t have two nickels to rub together. She had no job, and certainly no friends in Salem Creek. Which left . . . what?
The thought was interrupted by another smack of the mudroom door. She hoped it was Andrew leaving. Instead, she spotted Evvie through the kitchen window, heading toward the garden with a basket over her arm. Apparently, Lizzy wasn’t the only one who needed a little alone time.
As if on cue, Rhanna wandered into the kitchen, trailing her fingers along the counter like a bored child in search of distraction. “Andrew’s gone out to the garden with . . . Evvie, is it?”
“Yes,” Lizzy answered tersely. “Her name is Evvie.”
Rhanna was up on her toes now, craning her neck for a better view of the garden. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.
