Page 27 of Slow Burn
Amber stiffened, uncertain. She looked to his office as if he were still there. “I suppose so. I’ll have to see if I can find it.”
She disappeared into the file room while Jocelyn’s nerves crawled across her skin. Amber’s uncertainty tainted her confidence. But minutes later, Amber returned with a stack of papers.
“There’s a lot here to scan individually,” she said. “Why don’t I take care of that, and you can come on by a little later? That way I can take care of some of my other duties, too. There’s a lot on the docket today.”
Frustration threatened to unravel her politeness, but Jocelyn wrestled it back. Better this than refusal.
“Thank you,” she said, quiet but sincere.
“You’re welcome, Honey. You check on back in a couple of hours.”
Outside, the air felt heavier. Her steps to the car dragged, as if she walked through water. Not a failure, she reminded herself. Just another waiting period.
Always waiting, she thought.
Inside the stifling car, she turned on the engine, letting the air cool her skin while her mind replayed Ward’s words. Hermother, on the floor. Awake. Moving. Trying. Why hadn’t she made it farther? Why stop there?
The questions gnawed at her as she drove, keeping her too occupied to realize where she was headed. It wasn’t until she slowed the car in front of the empty lot where her childhood home once stood that she came back to herself. Only the foundation remained. A blank scar where her life had fractured.
Sometimes it felt like it had never existed. Like her mother had been a dream she’d told herself too many times.
This time she turned into the overgrown driveway, weeds brushing the tires. Green blanketed everything but that blank spot where the house should’ve been.
Those dream-like memories played in her head like an old movie, projecting faded and skipping scenes of a slight, dark-haired woman running through the sprinkler with her little girl on a hot July afternoon, squealing every time the cold water sprayed them.
Or those cooler autumn nights, when Jocelyn would sprawl across her mama’s lap as she pushed them back and forth on the porch swing with one foot, humming her current favorite song. Bonnie’s fingers would trace along the skin of Jocelyn’s arms, sliding back and forth in time with the sway.
Her memory played other things. The buzz of cicadas, the slap of the screen door that hung crookedly against the frame, the creak of the porch step that always announced someone before they got a chance to knock.
Frustration leaked out of her like an old radiator, leaving behind a hollow ache as memory whistled through those echoey halls. Despite the southern heat that pressed against her body like a wool blanket, scratchy and uncomfortable, a chill rattled her on the inside.
“Can I help you?”
The voice was like that wool blanket—scratchy and warm—but Jocelyn turned more quickly than she meant to, and the woman halted, taking one step back. Gray-green eyes went wide, and the color leaked from her leathery cheeks as she took Jocelyn in.
"I’m sorry, Honey." She pressed a hand to her ample bosom. "But my word, it’s like seein’ a ghost.”
Jocelyn inhaled slowly, bracing herself against the sting. It would always sting, being told she was her mama’s shadow.
“Ms. Etta, right?” Jocelyn asked.
“That’s right. I s’pose you weren’t so little you wouldn’t remember.”
“I couldn’t forget the chocolate milk and cookies you gave me.” And the way flashing red and white lights had painted Etta’s living room that night. And then Nan had arrived, whisking her away before the fire was even contained.
Etta sighed wistfully. “My bakin’ days are behind me now. Diabetes.” She gave Jocelyn a rueful look. “But I’m glad I made an impression.”
Etta made no move to head back across the street, and Jocelyn glanced at the empty lot again. It sang to a loneliness she felt down to her bones.
“Why didn’t anyone rebuild?” she wondered aloud.
Etta huffed a mirthless laugh. “That’d be on Ned Turner. ”
Electricity rippled along Jocelyn’s body like there was a storm brewing. Ned Turner was their landlord back then. She remembered very little about him except that her mama was always complaining about him.
“What do you mean?”
With a frown and a shake of the head, Etta said, “The house was worth more gone than standing. Ned tried to sell the place out from under your mama, but he never could get anyone to bite. After the fire, insurance said he had to build and live therebefore he could sell it. He chose to keep the land and take the payout. The money’s all he wanted anyway.”
