I like having them. The fact that I dont remember her, that I was too young to remember losing her, doesnt mean I dont understand what it was like for you. You wouldnt let me help.“

“Youre right. I wouldnt let you help. I didnt know how.” He took her arm briefly to steady her over the uneven ground, then let her go as they walked toward the trees.

“I loved her so much, Dana. Its not the sort of thing you think about every day when things are normal. I mean I didnt wake up every morning thinking, boy, I sure love my mother. But we were a unit.”

“I know.”

“When my father left us… well, I dont remember him very well either. But I remember that she was a rock. Not cold, not hard, just sturdy. She worked like a fucking dog, two jobs until we were out of the debt pit hed put her in.” Even now, he could almost taste the bitterness of it. “She mustve been so tired, but she always had time for me. Not just putting a meal on the table or handing me a clean shirt, but for me.”

“I know. She was so interested in everything you did, without breathing down your neck over it. I used to pretend she was my mother.”

He glanced down. “You did?”

“Yeah. You didnt think I was hanging around your house when I was a kid just to annoy you and Flynn and Brad, did you? I liked being around her. She smelled like a mother, and she laughed a lot. Shed look at you—sometimes shed just look over at you, and there was such love in her face, such pride. I wanted a mother who would look at me that way.”

It moved him to hear her say it, and the faint tang of bitterness washed away. “She never let me down. Not once. Not ever. She read everything I wrote, even when I was a kid. She saved a lot of it, and she would tell me that one day, when I was a famous writer, people would get a big kick out of reading my early stories. I dont know if I would be a writer today if it wasnt for her. Her steady, constant faith in me.”

“Shed be thrilled with what youve done.”

“She didnt live to see me published, not with a book. She wanted me to go to college. I wanted it, too, but I figured on putting it off a year or two, earning more money first. She laid down the law—and she was damn good at that when it was important to her. So I went.”

He was silent for a moment, and a cloud slipped over the sun, deadening the light. “I sent some money home, but not much. Wasnt that much to spare. I didnt come home as much as I should have. I got caught up. There was so much out there. Then I went to grad school. There were a lot of years I wasnt there for her.”

“Youre being too hard on yourself.”

“Am I? She put me first, every time. I couldve come back here sooner, earned a good living at the garage and taken some of the weight off her.”

She put a hand on his shoulder so he would turn and face her. “Thats not what she wanted for you. You know it wasnt. She was over the moon about what you were doing. When you had those stories published in magazines, she was thrilled.”

“I couldve written them here. I did write when I finally came home. I got my teeth into a book, wrote like a crazy man at night after work. When I wasnt being crazy over you, that is. I was going to do it all, have it all. Money, fame, the works.”

He spoke quickly now, as if the words had been dammed up too long. “I was going to move her out of that broken-down house, buy her someplace beautiful, up in the hills. She would never have to work again. She could garden or read, or whatever she wanted to do. I was going to take care of her. But I didnt. I couldnt.”

“Oh, Jordan. Youre not to blame for that.”

“Its not a matter of blame. She got sick. Id spent all that time away, now I was back, going to make it right. And she got sick. Just a little tired, shed say. Just a little achy. Getting old. And shed laugh. So she didnt go to the doctor in time. Money was tight, time off work was tough to get, so she didnt go until it was too late.”

Unable to hold out against it, she took his hand in hers. “It was terrible. What both of you went through was terrible.”

“I didnt pay attention, Dana. I was wrapped up in my own life, in what I wanted, what I needed. I didnt see that she was sick until she… Jesus, she sat me down and told me what theyd found inside her.”

“Its stupid to blame yourself for that. Stupid, Jordan, and shed tell you exactly that.”

“She probably would, and Ive come around to that since. But during it, after… It happened so fast. I know it took months, but it seemed so fast. The doctors, the hospital, the surgery, the chemo. Christ, she was so sick through that. I didnt know how to take care of her—”

“Wait. Just wait. You did take care of her. You stayed with her, you read to her. God, Jordan, you fed her when she couldnt feed herself. You were her rock then, Jordan. I saw it.”

“Dana, I was terrified, and I was angry, and I couldnt tell her. I locked it in because I didnt know what else to do.”

“You were barely in your twenties, and your world was crashing down around you.”

Even as she said it, she knew she hadnt understood that at the time, not completely.

“She was fading away in front of me, and I couldnt stop it. When we knew she was dying, when there wasnt much time—she was in such pain—she told me she was sorry she had to go, that she had to leave me. She said there wasnt a single day of my life she hadnt been proud of me, and grateful for me.

“I fell apart. I just lost it. Then she was gone. I dont know if I said good-bye, or told her Iloved her. I dont even know what I said or did.”

He turned back, walking once more toward the stones that bloomed out of the patchy grass. “Shed made all the arrangements already, so all I had to do was follow through. One foot in front of the other. The memorial service—the dress she wanted to wear, the music she wanted played. She had some insurance. Shed scraped money together for that every month. Christ knows how. There was enough to pay off most of the debts that had built up and give me some breathing room.”

“You were her child. She wanted to provide for you.”

“She did, in every possible way. I couldnt stay here, Dana. Not then. I couldnt live in that house and grieve for her every time I took a breath. I couldnt stay in this town, where I would see people I knew everywhere I went.

“Youd think it would be a comfort, the familiar. But for me it was constant pain. One minute Id feel like I was suffocating, the next like I was going to explode. I had to get away from it. I had to bury some of that pain the way. Id buried her.”

“You wouldnt talk to me about it.”

“I couldnt. If Id had the words, Id have choked on them. Im not saying it was right. It wasnt. But its the truth. I had to make something of myself, and I couldnt do it here. Or I believed I couldnt, so whats the difference?”

“You had to go,” she murmured, “or you wouldnt be who you are.” How could it have taken her so long to see that?

“I hated what I was here, and I was afraid of what I would become if I stayed. I saw myself working in the garage day after day, year after year, and throwing away everything shed worked for, everything shed wanted for me because I couldnt do any better. I was angry and in pain, so wrapped up in both I didnt give a damn about anything else.”

He came back to the edge of his mothers grave, stared down at the flowers. “I didnt know you loved me. I dont know what Id have done differently if I had, but I didnt know. You always seemed so strong, so sure of yourself, so easy with the way things were, that I didnt see inside that.“

He reached out to brush the hair back from her cheek, then dropped his hand again. “Maybe I didnt want to.

With all that happened to her, I didnt have any room to love anyone. But I hurt you, and I meant to. Because it was easier on me if you walked away. Im ashamed of that, and Im sorry for it. You deserved better.”

“I dont know what to say to you. It helps, hearing all this. I know it wasnt easy to tell me.”

“Dont cry, Dana. It rips me.”

“Its a little tough to get through otherwise.” But she swiped her fingers under her eyes. “We were young, Jordan, and we both made mistakes. We cant change what happened, but we can put it in place and try to be friends again.”

“Were grown up now, and weve got today to deal with. You want to be friends, Ill be your friend.“

“Okay.” She managed a wobbly smile and held out a hand.

“Theres just one more thing you need to know.” He clasped her fingers firmly in his. “Im in love with you.”

“Oh.” Her already unsteady heart stumbled. “God.”

“I never got over you. Whatever I felt for you back then, it was like the root. Time went on, Id keep trying to kill that root, but it wouldnt die. Id breeze back into town to see Flynn, catch a glimpse of you, or youd take a shot at me, and what was growing on that root would nudge a little further up from the ground.”

“Damn it, Jordan. Damn it.”

Whatever it cost him, he had to get it out. “This last time, when I knocked on Flynns door and you opened it, it was like that vine shot up another ten feet and wrapped around my throat. Im in love with you, Dana. I cant kill it off, and I wouldnt if I could. So, Im spilling my heart at your feet this time. Its yours, whatever you do with it.”

“What do you think Im going to do, you jackass?” She leaped into his arms. Relief, joy, pleasure rushed through him like a flood as he buried his face in her hair. “Thats what I was hoping youd say.”

THE first thing Dana heard when she walked back into Indulgence was arguing. Just one of the essential elements, in her opinion, that made a house a home. She cocked an ear toward her section of the building, and held up a hand for quiet when Jordan stepped in behind her.