The Road To Remorse

By Tracy Bayle

Joe-Wayne Watts is a young, exhausted, and stressed-out new father with an equally young and exhausted wife. He and Carrie have just brought home a precious new baby and been dealt two unexpected and devastating blows.

But things have a way of working out, and the Watts family moves on and copes with their lot in life. Their da

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracy Bayle
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781735450650

Tracy Bayle

"A keen observer of the experiences of humans."Tracy Bayle is an American author of women's fiction/family drama and romantic suspense, in both her Flannery Cove and Shanning's Bay novels, which are all part of The Sea Island Series. she is known for portraying the true characteristics of humans and the situations they create. She has been entertaining her family with tall tales ever since she could put two thoughts together, and if you're stuck in traffic or a waiting room with her, you are going to be forced to listen to her imagination run wild and create a story.Tracy resides in Florida with her family, and loves interacting with readers.Follow Tracy on Facebook to be part of an engaging community of readers and be the first to find out when more books are being released. https://www.facebook.com/TracyBayleAuthorInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracybayleauthor/https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19901615.Tracy_Bayle"Bayle's novels are baked with irresistible heartbreak and honesty, but it's that final sprinkling of relatable humor that makes them so addictive.".

Book preview

The Road To Remorse by Tracy Bayle

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2022 by

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact author at: [e-mail].

Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Cover Design by: SkimStone Publishing

Formatting by: SkimStone Publishing

Editing: Christine Kuykendall

Published by: SkimStone Publishing Winter Springs, FL, USA 32708

The Sea Island Series

There is a special place in the world called the Atlantic Ocean. Along this ocean’s coast, on the eastern part of the United States, from South Carolina down to Florida, is a chain of tidal and barrier islands called the Sea Islands. The Sea Islands gift the inhabitants of these coastal towns with a glorious watercolor rendition of nature’s most dynamic array of colors, as well as a continual symphony. Each island has a different flavor, but they all have been given a special sprinkling of enchantment.

It is that enchantment that brings visitors from around the globe seeking beauty and tranquility. But within every village there are the locals. The locals have families, jobs, homes. And the locals have secrets.

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

Epilogue

Dedication:

This book is dedicated to my children, Sloan and Abby. And to my daughter-in-law, Raven, as well as my nieces, Kristi and Kelli and their children Emma, Ethan, Ally, Noah, and Elli.

And to my beloved granddaughter, Audrey, who gets a line all to herself. You are my everything.

You are all precious gifts to me, and I wouldn’t trade you for the world.

Thank you to my readers, my editor Christine Kuykendall, my cover artist, and so many people that come together to make this possible. Your insight is invaluable.

ONE

1998

Havington Circle, number 1565. It had been on the market for nine months — nine months and ten days, to be exact — they’d been keeping a close eye. They could tell the owner was getting tired of keeping up the yard, sweeping up the walkway. It seemed a good time to pounce, but it was just a dream. Just another of their outlandish dreams.

They jotted down the number and prepared to drive away. We’ll call mid-week, Joe Wayne said. They’ll be thinking another week is going to come and go, another week without a sale.

Carrie twisted her lips, a bit unsure about that idea, and looked out the car window up at the bright blue sky. What if they did have a sale? What if someone had been by that very morning and planned to make an offer the following day? Just then she saw the curtains in the front window part and a woman’s face appeared. Even from this distance, the face was etched, a bit sallow, but the mouth looked turned up and friendly. Carrie leaned past Joe-Wayne, raised her hand, and waved, blowing their strategy to bits. It wasn’t even a hesitant wave, more one of an old acquaintance excitedly breaking a long interlude. The woman waved back kindly, and Carrie laid a hand on Joe-Wayne’s arm. Wait just a second and let’s see how this plays out, she said.

From the back seat where she sat coloring, Alyson piped up. I need to use the potty. Bathrooms were a new fascination for Alyson. She was a miniature interior designer, specializing in tubs and basins.

At the neighboring house, a garage door lifted and a sedan of some sort backed out of the driveway. Carrie craned her neck and watched with interest. It was a man who passed them. She imagined he had a sack lunch on the seat next to him. A little wad of tissue on a fresh cut from shaving. Whistling and already counting down the hours until he returned to the tidy, little home where he could toss the ball to his boy. That’s what she pictured when she thought of what life must be like for people lucky enough to live on a picturesque street like this one.

The woman in the window stepped out on the front stoop and waved again, with a hopeful smile on her face. She wants her offer now, thank you very much, Carrie said as Joe-Wayne mumbled something indecipherable and put the car back in park. Alyson began trying to unbuckle her car seat while rocking back and forth.

The potty Carrie set her daughter down on was in the half bath that was decorated in a dark green wallpaper with burgundy stripes and just off the hallway. The toilet lid, all the towel bars, and cabinet knobs were an outdated hue of light oak stain, oranged with age. There was carpet in the bathroom that was so plush the door was difficult to close and open over it. It made a whoosh sound when she forced it. Carpet – in a bathroom! But Carrie saw the potential, and Alyson preferred it just the way it was. She rubbed her dimpled hand over the wallpaper like she was petting a puppy. Pretty.

Down the hall, they found more bedrooms and bathrooms. In one, a canopy suspended from the ceiling and fanned over the bed as if a princess slept there. Carrie fingered the material, a thick calico, polished cotton, double seamed. She wondered if the woman standing nearby did the sewing back when her hands were agile and patient, her eyesight keen. She could almost see a little girl of the past snuggled under the sateen spread reading Beverly Cleary books.

Mrs. Williston liked them; Carrie could tell. Everywhere their family went, people liked them. They knew this — it was just a fact. They were nice people. Carrie always smiled just the right kind of smile for the occasion, at the perfect times. Joe-Wayne could find something in common with anyone, and complete strangers felt like they were related to him within ten minutes of being introduced.

Carrie accepted the glass of lemonade that Mrs. Williston offered her along with an oatmeal cookie topped with icing. Oh! she said, biting into the cookie, What’s in these?

Mrs. Williston clasped her hands together joyfully. Just a dab of peanut butter. The way my mother-in-law made them.

Carrie nudged Joe-Wayne, who was preoccupied with peering up at the ceiling. She turned back to Mrs. Williston and smiled sweetly. Well, if you have the recipe, I’d love it. An air conditioner clicked on, humming. The vent blew Mrs. Williston’s tuft of auburn hair that’d been curled under tightly, right at the crown. Four little curls facing different ways. North, south, east, and west.

Joe-Wayne moseyed to the corner of the dining room, knelt, and peeled back a corner of the frayed carpeting. They didn’t want to seem too over-exuberant about things, but they thought it was going well. Carrie could tell this by the way Joe-Wayne had detached himself from the conversation but continued to turn and take notice of it. He was gauging. The house felt like a home, like a place they could settle in and stay in. It could hold their twenties, their thirties, their forties, and beyond. They could be ninety and hobbling down these halls one day, with Alyson popping in on her lunch hour to make sure they’d taken all their morning medications. Even though that seemed centuries in the future, a time when humans might just literally pop in by teleporting themselves to their destinations.

Joe-Wayne and Carrie eyed each other from across the room thinking they should definitely pounce. And so an offer was made. It was low and Joe-Wayne even said it in a soft tone, like it was a secret. Carrie was a bit embarrassed, especially after asking for a family recipe, but it was the best they could do. She wasn’t likely to ever see Mrs. Williston again, so she shrugged it off. She hummed and made her way around the room with her hands behind her back admiring the pictures and nick-nacks crowding the shelves, and she waited while Mrs. Williston pondered the offer. She took Alyson to the bathroom one more time so Alyson could gaze at the stained tub and nod enthusiastically. Alyson sat down and began to remove her shoes, and Carrie swooped her up and carried her out. No. No. Bath later. She rifled through her purse and found a lollipop the bank teller had given her earlier in the week. She unwrapped it and popped it in Alyson’s opened mouth before any fits could be had. Before Mrs. Williston changed her mind and thought Alyson did not deserve a bed fit for a princess.

I like you kids, Mrs. Williston said. Make me think of me and Bob at your age. Mrs. Williston’s Bob was long gone. She was moving out to California to be near her son Davie, his wife, and her two grandkids. It’s a deal! she said, nodding her head with finality. She thumped a fist on the cream-colored Formica counter, and Carrie glanced down and noticed a gold design that looked like little boomerangs. I have a feeling you all will fill this place up with great memories and love it as much as we did, Mrs. Williston said.

And that’s what they’d done. They’d knocked down walls and built new ones. They’d ripped out old carpets and laid down a nice, quality laminate that looked like real wood. They’d created flower beds and hung a bench swing from that big tree in the backyard. They’d made it their home. And they’d kept in touch with Mrs. Williston, sending her a Christmas card every year since.

They’d had some hilarious times — like the one right after they moved in when Carrie organized a team of five men to help Joe-Wayne relocate the multi-tiered, concrete fountain that stood rooted to the side of the back patio. She’d promised everyone dinner and plenty of beer, and it had taken two weeks to line up everyone’s schedules. And then they’d all arrived with work boots and gloves and cut back the overgrown brambles. It took them ten minutes to strategize over who would be where and when to lift. After all that, the thing turned out to be made of fiberglass and weighed all of fifty pounds.

And they’d had some not-so-good times — like the time they began feeding a stray puppy, then named it, then took it in for shots and stopped at the pet store for a plethora of supplies, then found it in the backyard dead from a snake bite.

Now, the walls of this beautiful home were closing in on Joe-Wayne. Some days, he struggled to breathe. He’d heard of Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, read all about it in a women’s magazine in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. A heart attack brought on by stress or heartbreak. He was clutching his chest a lot lately. He imagined something snaking up his veins starting at his feet, sizzling its way to his heart, and zapping him dead. He wondered if he should ignore this premonition or prepare for it. How would he even begin to prepare? Tell the truth? Put the key to the bank security box where Carrie could find it when she was going through his clothes trying to find a nice suit to bury him in? Maybe he should start by getting a nice suit.

While we don’t have all the details, what we do know is that Joe-Wayne Watts of Shanning’s Bay, South Carolina did something that altered the course of multiple lives. That was the Breaking News blurb that continually rolled around in his head, threatening, keeping him awake at night as he busied himself with organizing the garage, changing out the smoke alarm batteries, folding laundry left in the dryer, and making the rounds — making sure his lovely wife was sleeping soundly, curled up like a capital S, her head tucked into her neck, and that his sweet daughter was splayed out like a flat cartwheel on top of the covers, her chest rising and falling with each breath.

Because no one knew more than Joe-Wayne how important it was to check on your family during the night.

TWO

1990-1994

The eighth grade had started in early September that year, at the height of hurricane season. There was a storm brewing in the Atlantic and everyone was keeping a close watch. On the first day, Carrie Chafe wore acid-washed jeans that tapered at the ankle and Keds tennis shoes with a red t-shirt. She would’ve liked to have worn the t-shirt her mother said was too tight, to show off what she had developed over the summer break, but her mother was a teacher at the school. Everyone else could show up to school in one thing and change in the bathroom. Carrie could not.

Her hair had grown longer and blonder from her summer on the beach. She looked good, and she knew it, even though she still wasn’t allowed to wear anything more on her face than a smidgen of lip gloss and some flesh-colored eye shadow, no matter how much she pleaded.

After school, Carrie walked into the gym to kill time while her mom finished up her work, and there she saw Joe-Wayne Watts playing basketball with three other guys. She knew he was the oldest of the Watts boys because she and Joe-Wayne had been in pre-school together, although she was doubtful he would ever remember that. She’d seen him around town from time to time, but their circle of friends and their lives were different. Carrie tapped at her chin. Joe-Wayne was one of four kids, but she wasn’t sure if they were all boys. There might’ve been a girl in the mix. His dad died the year before. That she knew from reading the Shanning’s Bay Tribune at the breakfast table and from the donation pot at the bank that had been set up for his family. Her father had given her a crisp twenty-dollar bill to drop in it.

There were no other girls in the gym, so Carrie sat down to wait for her mother and reached into her backpack for her Judy Blume book, Forever. Her mother would have a cow! She was lost in the fictional world of Katherine and Michael when she sensed a shadow drawing near. The shadow was Joe-Wayne Watts.

Mind if I sit by you?

A bit tongue-tied, she blinked and nodded.

You do?

No, no. I meant I don’t, she managed.

Joe-Wayne sat down and glanced toward her book. Looks interesting. He swiped a hand across his forehead, and Carrie closed the book revealing the front cover. He raised his eyebrows, and she was sure she turned all shades of red. A drawback of being blonde and fair-skinned.

The basketball hit the court and reverberated through the gym. The three guys he was playing with grabbed their belongings and sideswiped his outstretched hand as they walked past him. There was a chorus of, Later, Dude. Slap. Slap. Slap. It was layered with the dribbling down of rubber on hard maple flooring.

She found her voice. I haven’t seen you today in any of my classes. She carefully flattened out the wrinkle in her jeans and then puckered it back so she could flatten it again while she talked. You must have been placed in 8B. I’m in 8A.

Yup. I’m in Mr. Dillard’s homeroom. Joe-Wayne said matter-of-factly.

Cool.

Carrie had no idea what to say to a boy. Maybe something about the storm, but what? There was a category two coming. It might intensify, or it might dissipate to nothing. Locals knew this stuff. She reached into her backpack to put her book away and grabbed for a granola bar. Eating would give her something to do. I’m Carrie Chafe, she said between bites, wondering if he’d recall her name. She stole a glance at him. Sandy blonde hair, a bit of rosiness on his cheeks (which might’ve been from running on the court), straight, white teeth, and wide, earnest eyes. He reminded Carrie of a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

His face registered nothing. No recognition. Joe-Wayne Watts. He extended his hand like they were at a business meeting. She thought her father would say that was just plain old good manners.

Four months later Carrie and Joe-Wayne were at Fast Freddy’s eating burgers after the football game. When people asked, they liked to say they were in a relationship. A first love, just like in Forever.

Even though they were alone, Joe-Wayne had plunked down into the booth next to her, leaving the other side empty. He would stay there until they saw her father arriving in his Cutlass to pick her up. Then she would quickly slide over pushing him off the seat, grab her jacket, and be out the door before the car had come to a complete stop. Carrie’s mother and father did not approve of the words going together being used to describe fourteen-year-olds, and definitely not words like love or forever.

And the next thing I knew paramedics were flying down the mountain. We all just stood there on our skis watching while they took my dad on a stretcher, but even then, I saw there was no life, he said to her.

A rush of tennis shoes pounded past them. The two in the corner. Right over there.

Carrie was suddenly aware of the cacophony; it was a dissonant murmuring that built and plateaued and repeated alongside the continual chime of the door. But Joe-Wayne appeared oblivious.

He hit a tree, right at peak eight. Massive internal trauma. Joe-Wayne delivered the news deadpan. But then his shoulders slumped, and his voice went craggy, It was all my fault.

How? Why would you say that? Carrie’s brows shot up. She pushed her food away, uneaten.

Joe-Wayne wiped at the ring of water left on the table by his cup. Everyone in the family wanted to go to New York City for Christmas break. I was the one hold-out and I paid my two little brothers to side with me. Then we tossed a coin and Breckenridge won.

By the time they were in eleventh grade, they’d been Homecoming King and Queen once and Cutest Couple twice. Joe-Wayne had been deemed Most Considerate and Carrie had been Most Likely to Succeed. Their parents had long ago learned they couldn’t be pried apart. Joe-Wayne’s mom didn’t have two minutes of spare time to worry about who he was with or where he was anymore. They’d been a prosperous family at one time, a proud family with all four kids lined up in matching oxfords and khaki shorts for Easter pictures. They’d driven a new mini-van and taken memorable vacations. But all that ended on that last memorable vacation. Sandra Watts was left to take care of four hungry mouths and a demanding sewing and vacuum repair business alone. Still, she ran the business, did part-time embroidery work on factory uniforms, and stocked shelves at the Burlington store three nights a week. Joe-Wayne, being the oldest, was the one she depended on the most in life. He was her fixer of all things and all circumstances. Sandra depended on his part-time paycheck. She depended on him to fix a leaky faucet and patch a leaky roof. She depended on him to bandage scraped knees or have an arm in a makeshift cast before she got home around midnight. In a nutshell, she depended on him to anticipate anything and everything that could cause one bit of disruption in their routine and thwart it immediately. Who else did she have to depend on? She did not ask how he managed these things; she just took it for granted that he would. And Joe-Wayne had learned that no matter what transpired in the Watts children’s lives during the day, he best have it all wrapped up and shelved by midnight when his mother arrived home because he did not like to see the agony and despair etch itself further into the fine lines of her eyes. He was the man of the family now, and it was the least he could do.

On Carrie’s birthday, Joe-Wayne gave Carrie a promise ring he’d saved up for from working nights at Dwyer’s Automotive. Joe-Wayne had been doing mechanic work for Mr. Dwyer since he was thirteen. Since most of his money went toward putting out fires his mom never knew flared up in the first place, it wasn’t a very expensive ring. However, he assured her, It’s fourteen karats and for them, that was serious jewelry that spoke of their commitment.

They snuggled into the tweed sofa after Carrie’s mom and dad went to bed and her little brother, Allen, had finally stopped peeking around the corner of his bedroom. Carrie got up to turn on the lamp so it would cast a romantic glow while she and Joe-Wayne whispered about their families, their plans, their upcoming senior year. Carrie’s mom had accepted a new job as a headmistress at a private school in Orlando, Florida. Her dad had taken early retirement from the factory and applied for a job driving a Disney shuttle bus, which he thought was going to be a hoot. Just think of all the stories I’ll have, he repeated often. Carrie said that she wondered if they’d be considered rich, with her dad working a new job and receiving retirement money too. Her mother had made a face of absurdity when she’d asked, and bellowed, Ha. Ha. Ha, she told Joe-Wayne.

It hadn’t seemed possible that the contents of a home could be packed into so few boxes. Around them, the boxes were stacked high and labeled with black markers. An odd assortment, things like kitchen towels and candles were crammed in with photo albums, medicine cabinet essentials, and Kathryn’s scarves. The Chafe’s home had already sold and was set to close in a week. Carrie was going to have to move away, there were no other options. She had already given notice to the daycare she worked at after school and had her school records transferred. She and Joe-Wayne decided they would write every day and call on Sunday evenings after eight o’clock when the rates were lower. They would attend the same college after high school, get a little one-bedroom apartment together, study late in the evenings, and eat copious amounts of macaroni and cheese. Joe-Wayne had no idea how to put their plans into action, but he would figure it out in the next year.

Um, Carrie said, bolting from the room. I’m gonna be sick. She ran out of the room with a hand over her mouth and puked in the hallway like a cat. If the house hadn’t been packed that’s right where her mom’s hooked wool runner would have been.

Joe-Wayne was aghast. It must have been those sweet potatoes from dinner, he said, which sounded reasonable. They did have a very rich brown sugar topping.

After four evenings of late-night bouts of nausea with no other symptoms, she and Joe-Wayne piled into his old truck and drove to the drug store to purchase a pregnancy test. They were just kids and so sure they were invincible to the dangers they’d been warned of, they held a Bon-Jovi concert all the way there. Carrie shook her long hair back and forth and Joe-Wayne enunciated the lyrics with each nod of his head and drummed along the steering wheel. The dash was cymbals. Back home, the mood became a bit more somber. They waited in silence and tried to watch a re-run of Cheers until Carrie ran back to her bedroom and checked. Two blue lines had appeared. So faint they could be a fluke. When she showed it to Joe-Wayne he thought if those were ink marks on his Sunday shirt, he would still wear it, and probably no one would even notice.

But they knew. Carrie sobbed and gulped while Joe-Wayne rolled thoughts over and over in his head because he couldn’t stand to see her cry. It had been three years since he’d first sat down beside her in that gym, and ever since that day he had been head over heels in love with Carrie Chafe. That love had rescued him from his sorrow-filled life, and now he’d made a life — with her. So miraculous. It was as if they’d mixed ingredients together in chem class and voila-a baby had formed. My parents are not modern, Carrie lamented. They will never allow me to do anything but have this baby.

Joe-Wayne didn’t know what his mom was or how she voted on social issues, but he suspected the same. He knew she had a Bush for President coffee cup, but they might have passed those out at the factory. He knew he loved Carrie, and that was all that mattered to him anyway.

At two o’clock in the morning, long after he had gone home, Carrie called the phone he kept under his pillow. The only other phone in the Watts' house was in the kitchen where no one heard it ringing late at night, but Joe-Wayne always kept the handset from the living room under his pillow. What are we going to do? she moaned.

Joe-Wayne held the receiver close to his face, so it stayed dark. I bought this book on my way home, he whispered. This stomach thing, um, morning sickness they call it even though yours seems to be at night, it should be gone by week twelve of your pregnancy. His cheek hit a button on the receiver and made a small beep. And by week twenty you might begin to feel a small flutter. That’s the baby! he exclaimed as if they’d just experienced it.

Carrie’s heart had felt like a heavy block of ice when she first saw those lines, but warmth coursed through her as Joe-Wayne melted it. "I bought this book." She pictured him parallel parking in front of The Book Nook downtown and making his way inside to the women’s section.

She thought long and hard. It was so silent she wondered if Joe-Wayne might’ve fallen back asleep. Sometimes they stayed on the phone all night long, nodding on and off. Her thoughts swam like fish in an aquarium. Joe-Wayne was a bit of a fickle, easily bored, rambunctious sort. He tended to jump from one thing to another, which wouldn’t work with a wife and baby. He couldn’t just decide family life wasn’t fun after all like he had done with band practice and the debate team and the yearbook staff.

But then, she remembered the year she was so sick with mononucleosis. How he’d shown up every day after school feeding her tiny spoonfuls of strawberry frozen yogurt and rubbing her arms till she drifted off again. A natural caretaker. She pictured him walking down the street with a backpack and a baby’s soft head sticking out the top instead of a mess of papers and textbooks, and it was an image that wasn’t altogether preposterous. She remembered the first time she was alone with Joe-Wayne, how she’d leaned in softly for a kiss and he’d grabbed her shoulders and held on to her. She had loved his desperation for her. It made her feel like a woman at age fourteen. In her heart she knew, no matter what happened, her future was with Joe-Wayne Watts, and she would always be safe with him. She knew he loved her with a fierceness no one could ever match, and she would love him till the day she died. Maybe even longer.

Their parents. They were going to explode like fireworks. But that wouldn’t stop them, not with a baby coming. They’d come around. Carrie and Joe-Wayne may not have had financial resources, but they had emotional ones. She imagined that after a rocky start they’d eventually be just fine, like all the great love stories. The evening that had gone off-kilter, threatening to take their lives with it, righted itself. Joe-Wayne always said that life had a way of working itself out, and that time he was right.

Okay, she whispered down the phone line. We’ll get married.

THREE

1991-1992

THE TIME FOR TERAZA. It had started as a joke, well kind of. No, she’d been serious — definitely serious, although she couldn’t let on that she’d been. No one said that kind of thing out loud without sarcasm. But Teraza was sick of being abroad, and now she was home. The United States — that sounded like a port in a storm to Teraza. Especially for a girl that felt she’d been tossed around and ravaged by torrents for most of her life. By the time Teraza was nineteen, she’d lived in Yokosuka, Japan; Rota, Spain; Sigonella, Italy; and Souda-Bay, Greece. As well as Athens, where she’d graduated from the University’s School of Fine Arts. She’d always envied people that had a stable home and wondered why in the world her mother had ever wanted to marry a military physician, knowing she and her children would be doomed to a life of constant picking-up and re-locating. It hadn’t been fun or adventurous to Teraza or her little brother, Ross. It had been one huge pain in the butt life! Now Ross had finally married his long-time girlfriend, Megan, and settled in Gloucestershire, England with her and their little boy, Hudson. Her father was on his last tour before retiring and Teraza was ready to be an American, the kind she’d seen in movies: solid, stable, and satisfied. Cheeseburgers, roller skates, and drive-in movies. And she was ready to find someone to call her own — someone who stayed put.

Teraza’s Aunt Angela lived in Charleston and was a natural caretaker. Angela had been married to Ronny Shiver for forty-two years. They had two grown kids, Cecily and Kevin, who lived nearby, attended the local University, worked part-time at meaningless jobs, and stopped in once or twice a week to raid their parent’s refrigerator. It was what Teraza has been missing her entire life. And since Angela was the only living relative left on her mom’s side, she was pulled in that direction even more. Teraza missed her mother fiercely.

The breast cancer had come on with a vengeance. By the time they’d found out, it was late-stage, and her mother went downhill fast. Teraza never wanted to go back to Spain. The entire Spain tour was filled with hospitals, clinics, chemo, puking, and hair loss. The skin and bones tour.

Angela welcomed her with the open arms she’d needed wrapped around her since she was fifteen. But Teraza was an independent soul. She liked to flaunt it too. She’d found herself a little apartment in Savannah, only two hours away. To a traveler like her, that was a trip to the corner market.

What she lacked in emotional resources she made up for with financial ones. She had already secured a position for herself at the Museum of Art. She would be the Exhibit Designer. She would also build up her photography business, which was off to a very good start. Teraza had sold eight photos to date to top journals, and she’d written a few published articles on the craft —Equipment and Technique, Composition and Lighting — those, in particular, had gained serious recognition. She was beginning to make a name for herself.

So off she went to Savannah and the time for Teraza.

But the time for Teraza didn’t get off to a great start. The atmosphere at the Museum of Art was cliquish. She was not a southern girl. She did not speak with a twang or wear Lilly Pulitzer capris with seahorses and palm trees printed on them. On the first day of her second week, her little Chevy Nova had a blow-out at six o’clock in the morning on the highway, and she was lucky she was driving in the right-hand lane and made it over to the shoulder easily. She was also lucky a guy in a Saab pulled in right behind her because she knew as much about changing a tire as she did about how to make an award-winning plate of fried chicken or what colors were acceptable to wear in the south after Labor Day.

That coulda been bad, he said as he leaned to get out of his car then brought his six-foot frame to full height. He knew everything about how to change a tire and had it done in twenty minutes, while she simultaneously paced and watched. It was a bright morning, temperatures were already rising. The sun glinted off the glass and metal of all the cars whizzing by. When he was done with the tire, the good Samaritan checked the other three tires and offered to follow her to a gas station to air them up. Didn’t get your name, by the way, he said, extending his hand. Sam Wellhaven.

He was a looker; she’d give him that. Tall, blonde, teeth that lined up like obedient soldiers. Teraza Bennington. She took his hand then gathered her own together in front of herself, not quite knowing what else to do with them. Thank you so much for helping me. What do I owe you?

Sam gazed through his scholarly, wire-rimmed glasses. The ones he preferred, the only ones that didn’t rub the skin behind his ear, she’d later learn. Of course, he wouldn’t accept anything. She wasn’t expecting he would. She knew this drill. He’d ask her for a drink. And when he did, she would accept because 1) she was a bit lonely and lost in this town of people who reserved smiles and waves for their own, 2) he was devilishly handsome, and 3) he knew how to change a tire, and she had three others that looked questionable.

She turned her head left and right. The air was pungent with the slightly sulfured, yeasty smell of ocean air. Morning sunshine warming up the nearby water. There’s a convenience store just around that corner, Sam said. Bitter coffee. Cheap gasoline. Free air.

The rush hour traffic had trickled. Tereza started her car and veered onto the road. The tire rotated like the others, sturdy and stable, the sound of a swarm of mosquitos. She glanced in her mirror. Sam held up a hand. I’m here. Following you.

They met at French Court two nights later — a restaurant outfitted in warm woods and cream-colored wainscoting. Sam held out her chair and swept his arm with a dramatic flourish. He made her laugh, and she made his eyes sparkle with interest. And the wine made everything seem like a beautiful watercolor painting.

The band played something jazzy. Neither fast nor slow, just a steady tempo of brass, trumpets, and trombones. In the booth behind them, a woman said to her dinner partner, That’s not the way things usually work. Her tone was crisp.

Her companion responded with, "Who has time for the way things usually work?" His tone was sluggish, perhaps due to a few too many martinis.

Sam and Teraza both raised their eyebrows and resisted the urge to turn around and align the voices with faces. They were seated close to the front of the restaurant, and Teraza watched the maître d’, a militant-looking man who stood with his legs apart in front of a podium. His bulk was square, like a man created from block Lego pieces. Sam cut into his Boeuf bourguignon and said with a smirk, "He has a point. Who does have that kind of time?" He raised his brows even further, to the middle of his forehead. Teraza looked away first, his gaze so intense, the question seemingly suggestive, as if they should leave the table and seize the moment on the bar countertop. Teraza thought Sam might have the impression she was a woman of the world, coy and experienced in things she actually had little knowledge of. She felt the need to prove something to him, but what? She had little to work with, but she used what she had and played the part, crossing her legs and allowing her dress to hang the way it fell. She could tell that he was delighted with her, and that was a heady feeling.

The lights in the restaurant were dim. The reverberation of laughter and blues, forks clinking on plates, ice jiggling in glasses. The atmosphere was one of frivolity. Likely, Sam hadn’t even noticed her bare legs. He swigged his wine and leaned back in his chair. Tell me everything — every continent, the food, the customs, the language, he said, and for her, the re-telling was so much more fun than the actual living of it all had been. Maybe she was a woman of the world! It certainly sounded like it.

And you? She laid her fork on the rim of her plate and looked at Sam, feigning off the dizziness she felt. They were interrupted by the waiter, a man with little expression aside from a reserved smile. He kept one hand behind his back while topping off their wine glasses and Teraza watched him. His hairline had receded to the middle of his head as if it were slipping off. Much the way a shawl slips off a woman’s shoulders.

Field Service Engineer, Sam said. The waiter paused like he was speaking to him then moved to a nearby table, and Sam continued. Teraza couldn’t catch everything over the din. Large gas turbine manufacturer…travel to other states quite often…

Teraza’s head jolted. Relocations?

Nah, Sam