His mother had always stood out in Bluffwoods without being flashy. He’d been proud to walk in town with her, knowing that she looked different in a beautiful way. Her house gave the same impression.

Gavin touched the jewel case once more before he swung open the car door. The brilliant sunshine made him blink as he strode up the concrete walk. Passing into the cool dimness of the porch was a relief.

He squared his shoulders and pressed the doorbell, hearing the chimes’ muffled echo. After a few seconds, the weathered wooden door swung open. “Hello?”

Gavin tried to absorb every detail about the woman who stood in front of him as fast as he could. He didn’t know how long she would let him look at her. Her dark hair was cut short in a soft style that feathered around her face, a few silver threads gleaming in the light coming from behind her. The dramatic bones of her face showed more clearly than the blur of his memory because the roundness of youth had been honed away, and a few fine lines were etched around her lips and gray-green eyes. His eyes.

She wore navy trousers, a white blouse, and dangling turquoise-and-silver earrings, while a large, multicolored scarf was draped around her neck and shoulders. Her narrow feet were bare, the toenails painted bright orange.

Her expression went from polite inquiry to furrowed puzzlement to flashing joy. “Gavin? Gavin, it’s you! Oh dear God, it’s you!”

Guilt and regret tore at him as tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks, but her smile never wavered. She reached out to brush his shoulder with just her fingertips. “I thought you might be a hallucination, but you’re real.” She hesitated. “May I hug you?”

The feeling of suspension crumbled at her words. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him, even as he thought how fragile her shoulder bones felt under his palms. Fear crawled through him. She could die in her sleep tonight . . . and he would never get the chance to know her.

“Mom,” he whispered against her hair.

A sob broke from her. “I thought I’d never hear you say that again.” She leaned away from him to look up into his face, her expression one of wonder. “You’re so beautiful.”

“So are you.” He wanted to tell her that she was more than beautiful—that she was extraordinary, transcendent, radiant—but words, his stock-in-trade, couldn’t do her justice.

She shook her head and stepped back. “Here I am, making you stand on the doorstep when I’ve wanted nothing more than to welcome you into our home. Come in!”

Our home, she’d said.

When she turned and led him into the hallway, her movements summoned forth the ghost of his younger mother spinning around the living room. Now he understood her urge to touch him to make sure he wasn’t a dream. He wanted to throw his arms around her and breathe in the scent of her perfume as he had when he was a small boy.

“Let me give you a glass of wine, and we’ll go out on the patio.” He followed her into a combined kitchen and family room. Sliding glass doors led to a patio shaded by a trellis, dotted with urns spilling pink-and-purple flowers. Southwestern-patterned cushions made the wicker chairs look welcoming.

“You’re very quiet,” his mother said, pouring a glass of white wine. “Especially considering you’re a writer.”

He took the glass, noticing that her hands were the same slim, graceful shape he remembered. “I think all I want to say is contained in that one word. Mom.”

Tears streaked down her cheeks again. “I can’t hear it often enough.”

They settled in two chairs across from each other, she with her legs tucked sideways on the cushion. Gavin shrugged out of his jacket as the sun soaked into the leather. He waited for his mother to say something, but she just sat looking at him, smiling through her tears.

“Don’t you want to know why?” Gavin asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve learned not to ask questions when things are good.”

“I need to tell you.”

“Then I want to know.” She took a sip of wine without ever looking away from him.

He told her about the cards, about his confrontation with Odelia.

For a moment, anger tightened her jaw and made her eyes flash. “They had no right to keep those from you.” But then her shoulders slumped, and she stared down into her wineglass. “I should have called you. I should have made sure you knew I loved you. But I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me.” Her voice cracked. “That you wouldn’t want to talk to me. The cards were a coward’s way.”

“Odelia and Dad would have blocked your calls, too,” Gavin said. “And the cards led me here, so don’t regret them. The blame lies with Odelia, not you.”

“That woman had her own issues,” his mother said with a sigh. “I lived in Bluffwoods long enough to know her first husband was abusive and drank every penny he earned. Then he got himself killed when his tractor rolled on him. Odelia must have thought it was a gift from heaven when Kenneth offered to marry her so he’d have a mother for you. I imagine she was afraid if you left, he wouldn’t need her anymore.”

Gavin shifted his perspective again as he fit in the information about his cold stepmother. “I used to dream that you would appear on the doorstep one day and take me away with you.”

Her chair creaked as she shifted. “At the beginning I had no way to support both of us. Kenneth offered me money, but only if I signed over my rights to you.” She gave him a quick glance. “I wouldn’t do that. Then I listened to your father when he said you had settled in with Odelia, and I would only make things worse for you.” She sighed. “I was so young, I thought he knew better than I did. Then you got rich and famous, and I didn’t want you to think your success was the only reason I reached out to you.”

“I didn’t look for you because I didn’t want to know if you were dead,” Gavin said. “I couldn’t even ask Dad. I told myself that he would let me know if you passed away.”

His mother took a deep breath. “Now do you want to know why?”

“Why you left?” Gavin saw the pain in her eyes and shook his head. “I don’t ask questions when things are good.”

“You’re kinder to me than I would be to myself,” she said before she sucked in a deep breath. “When I met your father, I’d been taking care of myself since my parents were killed in a car accident when I was seventeen, and I was exhausted. I was working in the accounting department at a feed company in Chicago that he did business with. I’d flirt with him when he came in.” A tiny smile of memory curved her lips. “I don’t think he’d ever been flirted with before.” The smile faded. “He seemed so solid and dependable. He could lift some of the responsibility for my own life from my sagging shoulders.”