Page 38

I don't answer right away, because there's something about my mother's voice that's always made lying feel like more trouble than it's worth. "There was somebody. Back at New Year's."

"I know, baby."

"You know?"

"Mothers know things." She says it like it explains everything, which, knowing her, it probably does. Then again, my family all talks.

She continues, "You've had that look since January. The one your daddy had for two solid years before he worked up the nerve to ask me to marry him. Except you don't seem to have anybody to ask."

"I don't even have a phone number." It comes out rougher than I mean it to, and once it's out there, I don't see much point in stopping. "It was just a girl I met. It's not a big deal."

"So much not a big deal that you're still grieving the loss of her?"

"I'm not grieving her."

"Seems to me like you are. You aren't even eating my mashed potatoes. Since when don't you scarf those down?"

To appease her, I take a huge bite. "Mmm."

She smiles, waits until I swallow, and puts her hand on mine. "Tell me about her."

"Mom." I look at the ceiling.

"Oh, make your old mama happy. Tell me something about her," she pushes.

I cave, shaking my head. "I know she smells like vanilla and she bit her lip when she was thinking of something clever to say. She never once let me win an argument the whole time I knew her, which was about six hours longer than I've given anybody else my whole life."

Mom quiets a moment, turning my statement over the way she turns over everything, patient and careful. "Doesn't sound like nothing to me."

"It wasn't nothing. It just didn't go anywhere." I push food around my plate instead of eating it, and ramble, "She left before I could get back to the apartment. Never got her number. She and Carla had cleared out of town completely. So it's done. Whatever it was, it's done."

"Doesn't sound done, considering you're still carrying that receipt around in your glove box."

My head comes up fast. "How do you know about the receipt?"

"Your daddy found it looking for a tire gauge back in March. Recognized your handwriting on it, brought it in the house all confused, asking why you'd be keeping trash in your truck like a treasure." She smiles, soft and a little sad around the edges. "I told him to put it back exactly where he found it and never mention it to you."

I don't know what to do with the fact that my own father's been carrying that secret for eight months, quieter about it than I'd have ever guessed the man capable of being. And I don't know what to do with the lump that climbs up my throat at the idea of my mother knowing, this whole time, exactly how hard I've been failing to let go of somebody I only had for one night.

So I state, "I found it one day under my bed. She just read it and tossed it under the bed. But it's stupid. Holding onto a piece of paper like it means something."

"It means something to you. That's reason enough." She squeezes my hand once, then lets it go, standing to clear plates like she hasn't just cracked my whole chest open at the kitchen table. "I'm not going to tell you to go find her, because I don't know how you'd manage it any better than you already tried. But I am going to tell you that filling your bed with strangers isn't going to make that receipt matter any less. All it's doing is making you feel worse about a thing that already hurts plenty on its own. And you're hurting others in the process."

She's right, and I hate that she's right. So I finish what she put on the plate even though I'm not hungry, and I don't say another word about Lainey.

Before I go, she gives me the eye and says, "I think you should start spending time at your home on the ranch. That apartment isn't helping you."

I don't reply to it. I lean over, kiss her cheek, and offer, "Dinner was great. Thanks." I leave the kitchen and step into the cold night air and get into my truck. Instead of going to the apartment, I take Mom's advice and go to my house on the ranch.

Once I get inside, I kick off my boots and plop down on the couch, staring at my phone. I do the same thing I always do in my free time. I search for a woman I know almost nothing real about but can't stop obsessing over.

Lainey turns up nothing useful, same as it has every single time I've tried this since January. There's a retired schoolteacher in Waco, a realtor in Amarillo who's got the wrong color hair entirely, and a teenager's cheer squad photo from some high school two hundred miles from anywhere Lainey ever mentioned growing up. Not one of them has green eyes that brighten in the right light or a smile that made a whole crowded bar disappear around us.

For the hundredth time, I curse myself for not asking her what her last name is. I was too busy falling into a dance with her to think I'd need it later. Somehow, I let the only detail that would've actually helped me, slip right past.

I close the search and sit there another minute, phone screen gone dark. The house is quiet in the same particular way it's been for eleven months now.

The conversation with Mom plays in my head.