She looked too thin, was Zoe's first thought, as if life had carved her down to the bare essentials. She wore snug jeans and a skinny black top that only emphasized the sharp angles. Her hair was cut short, and she was wearing it in a hot red these days.

Her bedroom slippers scuffed the floor as she poured coffee with her back to the door. And were worn, Zoe knew, for comfort.

She was setting up to do a perm, and would be on her feet for a while.

The television across in the living area was tuned to one of the morning talk shows that seemed to thrive on anger and grief.

"You're running early or I'm running late," Crystal said. "I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet."

"Mama."

Mug in hand, Crystal turned.

She'd made up her face already, Zoe noted. Her lips were red, her lashes thick with mascara. Despite the cosmetics, her skin looked tired and old.

"Well, hell, look what the wind blew in." Crystal lifted the mug and drank as her gaze slid past her daughter. "You bring the boy?"

"No. Simon's in school."

"Nothing wrong with him?"

"No, he's doing fine."

"With you?"

"No, Mama." She stepped over, kissed Crystal's cheek. "I had something I had to do out this way, and I thought I'd come see you. You've got an appointment coming?" " 'Bout twenty minutes."

"Can I have some coffee?"

"Help yourself." Crystal scratched her cheek as she watched Zoe reach overhead for another mug. "You just happened to have business out here? I thought you were starting your big fancy place over there in Pennsylvania."

"I am, though I don't know if I'd call it big and fancy." She kept her voice upbeat and struggled to overlook the suspicion, and the criticism, in her mother's. "Maybe you could drive over sometime and take a look. We should be open in just a few more weeks."

Crystal said nothing. Zoe hadn't expected her to. She just picked up the cigarette and took a long drag.

"How's everybody?"

"Getting on." Crystal shrugged a shoulder. "Junior's still working for the phone company, doing right well. He knocked up that woman he lives with."

Zoe's cup clattered against the counter. "Junior's going to be a daddy?"

"Seems like he is. Says he's gonna marry her. I expect she'll make his life a misery."

"Donna's all right, Mama. They've been together more than a year now. They're going to have a baby," Zoe said softly, and smiled at the idea of her baby brother being a father. "Junior was always good with babies. He's got a gentle way with them."

"Like a baby's just gonna make everything all peaches and cream. 'Least Joleen's not looking to start popping them out right off."

Determined, Zoe kept the smile on her face. "Are she and Denny settling in all right?"

"They both got work and a roof over their heads, so they got nothing to complain about."

"That's good. And Mazie?"

"Don't hear from her much now she's got that place of her own down in Cascade. Thinks she's pretty high and mighty since she went to business school and works in an office."

What made you so sour? Zoe wondered. What turned you so hard? "You should be proud, Mama. Proud that all four of your children are making their way. You gave us the means to."

"Don't see any of them coming around here thanking me for working my ass off more'n twentyfive years so they could have food in their bellies and clothes on their backs." "I'm here to thank you for it."

Crystal let out a snort. "What do you want?"

"I don't want anything. Mama—"

"You couldn't get away from here fast enough. Nothing was ever good enough for Queen Zoe. Got yourself pregnant from that highfalutin Marshall boy thinking you'd buy your way into the good life. He shook you off right quick, didn't he, and what'd you do but take off hoping to land in another pot of gold."

"Some of that's true," Zoe said calmly, "and some of it isn't. I wanted to get away from here, I wanted something better. I'm not ashamed of that. But I never thought of my baby as a ticket to a better ride. I worked hard for you, Mama, and I worked hard for Simon and for myself. And I made something. I'm still making something."

"That don't make you better. That don't make you special."

" Ithink it does. I think it makes me better than the people who don't buckle down and take care of their own. That's what you did. You took care of your own, the best you could, and that makes you special. I know how hard it is to raise a child," she continued while Crystal stared at her. "How hard, and how scary it is to raise that child, and worry about him and work to figure out how to pay the bills and just keep it all going with nobody to help."

Another car started up, with a frantic backfire. "I only have Simon, and there were times I just didn't know what I was going to do next, times when I didn't know how I'd make it to the next morning, much less the next week. You did it with four of us. I'm sorry if I made you feel I didn't appreciate it. Maybe I didn't appreciate it enough when it was going on. I'd like to thank you for it now."

Crystal stubbed out her cigarette, folded her arms across her chest. "You pregnant again?"

"No." With a laugh, Zoe rubbed her hands over her face. "No, Mama."

"You just stop in here, out of the blue, to say thanks?"

"I can't say I knew that's what I had in mind when I got up this morning, but yes. I just want to say thanks."

"You always were a strange one. Well, you said it. Now I've got a customer coming in."

Zoe let out a little sigh of defeat and set her coffee mug in the sink. "I'll see you Christmas, then."

"Zoe," Crystal said as she turned for the door. After a brief hesitation, Crystal stepped over, gave Zoe an awkward hug. "You always were a strange one," she repeated, then walked back to the counter and began separating rods.

With tears pricking her eyes, Zoe stepped out, let the screen door slap shut behind her. "Bye, Mama," she mumbled, and walked back toward the woods.

She didn't know if she'd accomplished anything more than a kind of backtracking, but it felt right—just as the brief, self-conscious hug from her mother had felt right. She'd taken a step toward healing a personal wound, and finding the key.

She had to understand herself, didn't she? She had to understand why she'd made the choices she'd made, and where they had led her, before she would understand what choice she had to make to find the key.

Eager to move forward, she hurried down the path. She would drive to Morgantown, go by the rooms she'd rented, go by the salon and the store where she'd worked, the hospital where Simon was born. Maybe there was unfinished business there, too, something to resolve, something to see.

She'd lived there nearly six years, the first years of her son's life. But she hadn't forged any strong ties. Why was that? She'd been friendly with the people she'd worked with, had spent time with her neighbors and a couple of other young mothers.

She'd had relationships with two men while she'd lived there, men she liked. But it was all so transient.

Because, she realized, that had never been her place. It hadn't been a destination but a stoppingoff point.

She hadn't known it then, but she'd been heading to the Valley. To Malory and Dana. To the Peak, to the key.

Had she been heading to Bradley, too, and was he to be as essential to her life as the rest?

Or was he just another crossroads, there to lead her from one point to the next?

Move forward, she told herself. Move forward and see.

She checked her watch, measuring the time it would take her to drive, to spend the time she needed in Morgan-town, then get home again.

She should be able to manage it and still get back before Simon got home from school. But she should stop and call, just in case. She should let Dana and Malory know she wouldn't be in to work.

She would go in early the next day to make it up, and she could work that night on the slipcovers for the sofa, maybe swing by HomeMakers at some point the next day and pick up the shelving she wanted. If she could get that together, and the next shipment of her supplies came as scheduled, she could…

Her busy thoughts trailed off as she stopped and turned in a circle.

She'd detoured off the path, she realized, which served her right for letting her mind wander. The undergrowth was thicker here, and armed with thorns that would play hell with her pants and jacket if she wasn't careful.

She looked up to try to judge her direction by the sun, but the sky had gone to pewter, with a few angry clouds crawling across the dull plate of it.

She would just go back the way she'd come for a bit, she decided. It hardly mattered, as the woods were no wider than a football field, creating a wedge between the field and the trailer court.

Annoyed with herself, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and started back. The air had chilled while she walked, and the scent it carried was more of snow than rain. She walked quickly, in a hurry to be on her way as much as to keep warm.

The trees looked bigger, closer together than they should have, and the shadows much too long for so early in the day. There was no tapping woodpecker now, no rustling from squirrels running about their business. The woods had gone quiet as a tomb.

She stopped again, baffled that she should be so disoriented in a place where she'd run tame as a child. Things changed, of course, everything changed. But hadn't it struck her when she'd come into it how little this place had changed?