Page 14 of The Moonlight Healers

“Are they that bad?”

Jim cocked his head to the side. “You should know. You used to be one of those yahoos.”

“Wahoos.”

Jim waved his hand dismissively. “Same difference.” He rolled the chewing tobacco to the other side of his mouth. “They’re not like I was when I was a kid.” He glanced over at the register where Caroline stood. Louise waved in greeting. Though Louise rarely ever saw her except in passing, they had remained friendly over the years, though Caroline now studied the screen in a way that made Louise feel like she was being ignored. “She’s not so bad though.” He put his hands in his pockets and surveyed Bobbie. “You’re here to drop off Louise?”

Bobbie’s expression immediately tightened.

“She’s here for a visit, actually,” Louise replied at her mother’s silence. “She’s staying.”

Jim’s eyes widened. “Well, isn’t that something.”

“It is,” Louise said before her mother could disagree, or diminish it. Despite the accident, she also felt the tiniest spark of hope, that maybe after all these years, this would be enough to bring them back together again. Her mother was there, at the place that had been their home, and for once, she couldn’t run away.

Jim leaned toward Bobbie. “It’s a good thing you’re here, kid. She misses you. And she needs you, even if she’s too damn stubborn to admit it.”

Bobbie looked up at him, her mouth half-open, forming a question, but Jim just patted her arm and strode away.

Louise turned to her mom, grateful for Jim’s words. “No excuses now. Let’s go.”

After a short walk up the gravel drive, the square white house came into view, nestled into a clearing at the base of the mountain.

There was a long and never-ending list of updates the oldfarmhouse needed, central heat and air, new windows that didn’t let in every single draft, a new front porch to replace the one that practically hung off the house, half its boards loose or rotting. Whenever Louise would gently try to ask her grandmother about it, Camille shook her head and said she liked things as they were.

And so, the house stayed as it was, as it had been for almost a century, before Camille, before Louise’s great-grandmother, Helene, before Helene’s Irish father-in-law bought the land in 1922.

“Would it really kill her to pave this thing?” Bobbie said as they stepped over large puddles on the driveway from the previous night’s rain. “It’s like some kind of contest, isn’t it, like she wins a prize for letting her house collapse around her. God forbid she hires someone to do anything. You know my uncle Daniel told me that the last time he visited, he found her up on a ladder cleaning out the gutters. At nearlyseventy. She’s as stubborn as a mule.”

“Mom.”

“What?”

“Please be nice to her.”

“I’m always nice to her.”

Louise made a face.

“I always try to be nice to her.”

“Try harder.”

Just then the screen door slammed. Camille walked out onto the porch, her curly white hair loose and long around her shoulders. She wore green linen pants, an oversize white button-down top, and tennis shoes, her face lined and freckled from years working in the sun. She hurried down the stairs, her movements, even at seventy, athletic and confident.

Camille gripped Louise’s shoulders and looked her up and down. “You’ve got a black eye.”

“Just from the airbag.”

“Will it hurt if I hug you?”

Louise smiled. “I think I’ll survive.”

Gently, Camille pulled her in for a hug. Then she turned to Bobbie.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Barbara. It’s good to see you here.”

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