“I see his eyes!” she still cried whenever she was stressed. Mom had told Jamie that much. When she was still living with her sister and mother, Jamie had tried and tried to learn what that meant, but pressing Emma had only increased her fear and distress, and Mom had angrily told Jamie to back off. Though Emma’s hysteria had diminished in the years after the attack, her attacks of fear almost gone by the time Jamie left with Paul, they’d never completely disappeared.
Now, as she and Harley reached the outskirts of River Glen, Jamie drew a calming breath. She hadn’t seen Emma in nearly two years and was anxious about meeting her again and the living arrangements that would need to be made. Emma needed a caretaker, and that caretaker had been Mom. Now it was going to be Jamie, at least for the time being. It was hard to know what to expect next, impossible to plan. Jamie was going to have to take things day by day.
But one thing was for certain, at least in Jamie’s mind, and that was that she was going to fulfill all requirements needed for her to get her teaching license in Oregon. She was duty bound to be in the state at least for a while, and though substituting was fine, Jamie really needed a full-time job. She’d made a point of lamming out all those years ago, but she felt almost glad to “come home” as her mother had requested in her dream . . . and Harley’s. . . .
Jamie shook that off. She and Harley had left for Oregon in the early hours of the morning and now, as they reached the outskirts of River Glen, it was about six p.m. Harley, who’d been half-sleeping most of the trip, suddenly straightened in the passenger seat. Her long, dark hair was tangled and she brushed it away from her face. A soft smattering of freckles crossed the bridge of her nose and her blue eyes were intense, a gift from Paul as Jamie’s eyes were brown. Paul had called her his “Little Doe” or sometimes, “my brown-eyed girl,” other times “Raggedy Bitch,” or even more often, “What the fuck, Jamie?” which was how she most often remembered him and their relationship. A sad truth.
“That’s the Stillwell place,” Jamie said as they drove past the entrance to the long drive that led to Race and Deon Stillwell’s home. She’d learned from her friend, Camryn, whose contact with Jamie was mostly through Christmas cards, that both of the Stillwell parents were gone and the two sons had apparently inherited Stillwell Seed and Feed and still lived in the family home.
Harley peered down the long, passing drive that wound through the hedges and out of sight. Only the roof of the house could be glimpsed from the road. “That’s where you were the night Emma was stabbed.”
“Yes,” Jamie said soberly. She always felt that same stab of guilt. Maybe she deserved it. Mom had never hidden her feelings about how she felt about Jamie’s switch with Emma, and she’d never been afraid to talk about that night in front of Harley, even when Jamie had protested.
“It’s really too bad,” said Harley.
Jamie silently agreed.
“But if things hadn’t happened that way, I wouldn’t be here. You would have never run off with Dad.”
Jamie wasn’t sure whether that was an olive branch or a jab of some kind. Or maybe it was neither. Just Harley relating what was on her mind. “Hard to say.”
They drove into River Glen proper. The downtown area was made up of restored storefronts and a central square. It looked better now, Jamie decided. Fresh paint on the buildings and crosswalks. A new set of traffic lights. Modern city meters that allowed for credit card payments. A row of Kelly-green motorbikes, which she saw were rentals, the kind you could take around town and exchange for another.
“Wow,” Harley said in surprise, staring at the bikes.
“I know, right? I thought those were only in large cities, like Portland.”
“How old do you have to be?”
“Sixteen, I’m sure, at least. With a license.”
“Damn.”
Jamie would have berated her for swearing, as she automatically did as a matter of course, but they were turning onto Clifford Street, the street she’d grown up on, and she could see the outlines of her mother’s house. She glided to a stop on the opposite side of the street, taking her measure of it. The maple trees lining the street had grown, and the dogwood in the center of the front yard still had a few green leaves. Autumn hadn’t gained its harshest grip yet.
An older, green Chrysler minivan was parked on the street in front of the house, its side stenciled with Theo’s Thrift Shop and a phone number. Theo was eager to pass off her increased caretaker responsibilities to Jamie.
“Aren’t you going to pull in?” Harley’s blue eyes regarded Jamie critically.
“Yeah . . .”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just kind of . . . strange.”
“’Cause Grandma’s gone.” She said it with a nod, as if she understood completely, though there was no way for Harley to grasp the intricacies of Jamie’s relationship with her mother. Jamie had trouble grasping those complexities herself sometime. She’d resented her mother, especially for blaming her, but she’d loved her, too. Fiercely. Which had made Mom’s anger at her all the harder to accept.
“All right,” Jamie said now, and cranked the wheel, aiming the Camry toward the driveway. They bumped along the cracked asphalt, and Jamie pulled up in front of the garage door. “Leave everything for now. Let’s just go inside.”
Harley followed Jamie up the back steps. Jamie wondered if the keys
