Smoky Mountain Sweethearts

“I’m sorry I didn’t start down sooner,” Avery mumbled. When she was younger, hitting her mother with the apology before she could dig deep into her aggravation had been a good strategy. That, coupled with Janet’s worry over Avery’s health, might be enough to postpone the lecture until morning. “I could have driven your car home, Mama.”

The tense silence that followed her statement was enough to convince Avery that nothing was going to postpone the lecture boiling inside her tiny mother.

“We will talk about this when we get home, Avery,” her mother said succinctly. She didn’t turn around in the seat, but Regina glanced back in the rearview mirror, confirming for Avery that her mother was in a high state of mad at that point. Only good manners and being in the presence of company were saving her from a thorough speaking-to.

Resigned to accepting her fate, Avery rested her head against the cushion and closed her eyes. They were close to the rolling hills of Sweetwater when Regina said softly, “You know, Sam’s single.”

Avery slowly opened her eyes in time to watch her mother thump her head against the headrest.

“I’m saying, if he’d find a nice girl here in town, the need to run off to bigger and better fires might disappear.” Regina waved her hand. “In smoke.”

“Good one, Ms. B. Smoke. Because he’s a firefighter.” Avery covered her wide yawn with one hand. “What I don’t get is how that fits into this conversation.”

“I think he was jealous.” Regina turned down the narrow street that led to their houses. “Of poor Brett Hendrix, who is a good man. He’s got kids and that woman did run off and leave him with zero help.” She tsked as she shook her head. “He needs a good woman.”

“But not me.” Avery slowly opened the car door after Regina put the car in Park in her driveway. “Good to know.”

“I’m saying,” Regina said as she shut her own door, “that if Sam is warning you away, maybe he’s got some interest.”

Avery skidded to a stop and braced her hand against the low fence that marked the boundary between the two lots. “In me. Interest in me.”

Regina shrugged.

“They nearly put each other in the hospital at least three separate times, Reggie,” her mother said drily. “I’m not sure we want to put them back together, especially in close quarters.”

The rest of their conversation was lost as Avery forced one foot in front of the other, climbing the porch steps carefully to keep as much weight off her aching knee as possible.

She’d better find a painkiller before she passed out for the night because it would be hard to sleep. The front doorknob turned easily. Avery refused to consider how often her mother left the doors unlocked.

Avery stared up at the flight of stairs that would lead to both the bathroom, home of all medicines in her mother’s house, and her comfy bed. The overwhelming fatigue convinced her to make a quick stop in the living room. She’d eased down and smacked a pillow into the proper shape when her mother stepped inside.

Knowing her efforts were doomed, Avery nevertheless attempted a diversion. “You don’t care if I sleep on the couch tonight, do you, Mama? My knee’s making its opinion of the stairs clear.” She made sure to wince theatrically when her mother paused in the doorway, her hands braced on her hips, terry robe gaping over a hot-pink sweatshirt. “If you’re wearing sweats, what’s with the robe?” Normally, the woman who wouldn’t step foot outside the front door without lipstick would not be caught outside her home in anything less than easy Saturday chic.

“Sleep on the couch. That’s fine.” Her mother closed her eyes and Avery waited until the tense silence became too much to bear.

“And what is with Regina? There’s no way Sam is interested in me.” Avery shoved another pillow under her knee and stretched out on the cushions. “He’s the one who dared me into swimming across Otter Lake in November.” It wasn’t impossible. She’d proved that. But it wasn’t smart. A quick trip to the emergency room for a light touch of hypothermia was a significant reminder. “He’d be more likely to plot my downfall.”

Her mother nodded once and then she held up a hand. “Avery, you need to get something straight.”

The emotion shaking her mother’s voice snapped Avery to attention. If she’d been trying to avoid an angry lecture by playing ignorant, the game had changed. Her mother wasn’t playing any games.

“What is it, Mama?” Avery asked, her choked voice betraying the nerves that had rattled to life with her mother’s grim expression.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming home.” Her mother’s voice broke and she had gripped both arms tightly, fingernails digging into the terry cloth.

Confused, Avery eased up. “Tonight? Of course I was.” Where else would she go? She’d been driving her mother’s car.

Which was still parked at the trailhead.

“Tonight. From Chicago. Ever.” Her mother took a step forward. “I’ve been worried sick about you, and all I get are nothing updates.”

“But I’m here now. I’ll get better.” Avery shook her head. “I’ll do better. You can see me doing whatever it is you’ve been dying to know but have missed out on.” Lately, that meant catching up on a lot of sleep. What were they talking about?

“Avery,” her mother said as she stepped up next to the couch, “do you want to get better? You don’t go out, you don’t eat, you haven’t talked to your old friends or... All you do is sleep. Do you want to get better?” She eased down on the cushion next to Avery’s ripped jeans. “Honestly.”

“Of course,” Avery said without hesitation. What was the other choice?

Her mother nodded. “It’s that...” She unwound one arm and pinched her nose, the old trick they both used to dry up tears. “I was afraid you meant to...stop. To stop everything there in your favorite place in the world. To give up.”

Avery could not figure out what they were talking about. “How would I have gotten home? You mean, sit there and...” Avery studied her mother’s grim face and the tears that were making a lie of the old trick. “...die?” Nausea rolled through Avery.

“I tried to prepare Sam for the fact that might be the plan.” Her mother wrapped her hands in her robe. “They handle things they shouldn’t have to.”

Avery straightened with a snap. “You told Sam you were afraid I was going to...” Avery paused to try one more time to figure out any legitimate reason this conversation would be going the way it was. “You told him I was going to kill myself at the Falls?” The hard burst of pain behind her collarbone shocked a gasp out of Avery. She’d been through enough pain that it was easy to live with now. She’d become a master at the slow grind of devastating grief, but this sharp jab of disappointment or embarrassment or shame or some confused combination of all three made it hard to breathe.

Aware of the ragged gasps coming from her mouth, Avery covered her lips with one hand and wiped away a tear with the other. “What?”

“I never would have believed it possible, but I was afraid I was about to lose you.”

Her mom wilted in front of her.

“Growing up, you and Sam both, I worried you might kill yourselves in some kind of stunt, trying to outdo each other racing up the mountain or even climbing that oak tree.” Her mother sighed. “And that would have been terrible, but losing you because you couldn’t go on living... I’m not sure how I’d survive.”

Since her mother had always had enough energy and firm enough opinions to fill two petite women, Avery understood immediately how afraid she’d been. She would feel the same way if she found out her mother had lost as much weight as she had.

Add to that the inability to fill her days with anything other than sleeping or staring out the window, and Avery would have checked her mother in somewhere, worried to death about the changes to her personality.

“Why didn’t you talk to me, Mama?” Avery asked.

“What would you have said? You were always doing fine. I was silly to worry so much. I needed to find something else to do with my time.” Her mother stood to pace. “And some of that’s even true, but now, tonight, you and I are about to make a change. You cain’t go on like this, Avery Anne.” The pleading in her mother’s eyes didn’t quite match her firm tone, but Avery could tell this was important. She couldn’t brush it off.

“Fine. We’ll make a change.” Avery ran a hand through her messy hair. “I went up that mountain hoping to find some direction, the answer to your favorite question. I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I hoped for some revelation. Instead, I got a rescue.”

Her mother snorted. “Think answers land with lightning bolts, do you? What did you figure out?”

“When I was seventeen, I won a race to the top of the falls.” Avery ran a hand through her curls. “I cheated. I had to cheat to beat Sam by that point. He had a foot in height and I don’t know how much in muscle on me, so I tricked him into heading back to the parking area for something and I started climbing. When he made it to the top, I was stretched out on the flat rock there, grinning like a mule with a mouth full of briars.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “I don’t doubt it. You have always loved to win.”

“That’s what Sam said.” Avery laughed. “As if he’s ever been any better.” She eased back against the pillows. “We argued over the ‘rules’ of the race. Since we neither one of us ever worried much about losing, they were hazy as usual, and I wiggled my way out of every one of his objections.” Her smile faded. “He told me then a shark like me ought to make a killing as a lawyer.”

Her mother nodded but she didn’t add any of the usual comments about how she couldn’t accept a girl who’d worked her way through college and law school had given up before graduation to follow a man. Really, Avery had heard it so often she should be inured to it by now.

But at this point in her life, when nothing had worked out like she wanted, it was hard to imagine how she could have let herself get sidetracked from her own plans.

“That’s the first thing you do, go back to school and get that law degree,” her mother said as she fussed over the rip in Avery’s jeans. “You and Sam have slowed down on the dumb dares, but I was pretty sure one or the other of you would need a good lawyer someday.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

Avery tried to imagine what it would be like to go back to school at this point. Where would she even start? She’d gotten home, her plan to never leave again. To finish her law degree, that plan would go out the window.