Liddie hid in one of the interior rooms, one with no windows, so she couldn’t see Tobias still sitting there at the picnic table, so she wouldn’t be tempted to go to him and spill every single detail of the previous thirty years like he’d asked her.

“He’s gone, Liddie.” Ace leaned against the doorjamb. “You okay?”

“Maybe.” She leaned back against the wall with a sigh. “He wanted me to tell him about my life from the time we last saw each other until now.”

“So you didn’t tell him anything.”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I got kind of snippy with him.”

“And now you feel bad . . .”

“Yeah, a little.”

Ace crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t owe him a story. You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“Chloe Elizabeth Douglas, you do not walk away from me while I’m talking to you!” Tally’s voice reverberated down the hall of The Backward Glance. Ace raised his eyebrows at Liddie, and she just shook her head. She loved her daughter and granddaughter dearly, and she’d missed them during their six-week separation, but, boy, she sure didn’t miss their squabbling.

“I’m just coming to tell the uncles and Mimi ‘hello.’ Jeez,” Liddie heard Chloe mutter before seeing her poke her head through the door. “Hi, Mimi. Hi, Uncle Ace.”

“Hey, sweetie.” Liddie squeezed her granddaughter in a side hug, and when the girl didn’t squirm away, she knew something was up. “What have you been up to today?”

“Not much, because there’s nothing to do in this little poky town. There’s not even a library!” Chloe leaned closer into her grandmother.

“The county library is only fifteen minutes away, Chloe. That’s closer than we were when we lived in California. What do you say about heading over there tomorrow?”

“I’d say, ‘I’ll pass,’ because it’s closed tomorrow. It was closed today, too.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know how you didn’t go crazy, Mimi. What did you guys do for fun? Chase goats? Make cheese?”

Liddie snorted. She didn’t have much input because she didn’t do anything in high school except go to church and school. And if he was playing close enough, she’d sneak out with Candy Bristol to go see Tobias Harper play.

“That’s not very fair, Chloe,” Ace said. “There was always hay baling and pig racing.”

Liddie had to laugh at Chloe’s shocked then disgruntled expression.

“Now you’re just being a smart-ass, Uncle Ace,” Chloe groused.

“Better than a dumb butt,” he shot back.

“Ugh. I cannot wait to go home!” Chloe stomped out of the back room, passing her mother without speaking.

“Don’t stray too far, Chloe. We’re going to head home and start supper in just a few,” Tally called after the teenager.

“I take it you haven’t told her that this is home now?” Liddie watched her daughter squirm.

“No, I have. That’s what I was telling her when we got here. Or rather, I was trying to tell her, but she wasn’t listening.” Tally rubbed her temples. “Tell me I haven’t made a mistake, Mom.”

“I don’t think you’ve made a mistake.”

“But. . . .”

“No ‘buts,’ sweetie. You’re doing what you think is best.” Liddie pulled her daughter into a hug. “Oh, baby, I know it’s hard.”

Tally swiped at her eyes. “It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.” She gave her mother a watery smile. “I don’t know what I would have done without you and Bunny and Ace.”

“You would have figured it out, just like we’ve always figured stuff out. Chloe’s not at the easiest age to begin with.” Liddie stopped short of saying “I remember you at that age” because that wasn’t helpful at all. “She would have been starting a new school anyway. This is just a more extreme version of that.”

The teenager in question poked her head around the corner. “I thought you said we were going to be leaving really soon?”

“Hey, squirt, you said something about goats earlier. Do you like goats?” Ace’s question made all the women turn to him.

“Are you talking to me, Uncle Ace?” Chloe adjusted her satchel on her shoulder, obviously ready to go.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you, Bickle. Do you like goats?”

Chloe looked at her mother, who shrugged, and then to her grandmother, who grinned because she thought she had an inkling where this was headed.

“Who’s Bickle? Is he one of your crazy friends?” Chloe scowled. “Yeah, I like goats all right, especially the little ones. I like watching the YouTube videos of them prancing around.”

Ace clapped his hands together. “All right. I’ll call Saffron tonight, and we’ll go over there tomorrow since the Hillbilly Library isn’t open tomorrow. ‘Who’s Bickle?’ That’s just sad . . .” He gave Liddie a look of faux disapproval but then winked at her.

“On that note, we’re outta here.” Tally fixed a smile on her face, and Liddie cringed inside, recognizing that perky “It’s all good, fiddle-dee-dee” look as the one she wore for most of her life. When she and Tally had some time alone, sooner rather than later, they needed to have a frank discussion about self-care and fresh starts. Of course, Liddie knew this was the pot calling the kettle black, so she made a promise to herself to start practicing what she preached.

´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´

Liddie sat in the antique rocker on the wraparound porch of her uncles’ house, rocking slowly and thinking about nothing in particular for once. Snippets of memories flitted on the periphery of her mind’s eye, but for the most part, she managed to just enjoy the evening air.

She heard the screech of the screen door’s hinge but didn’t take her eyes off the huge magnolia that dominated the Bunsen-Hopewell backyard until Bunny cleared his throat.

“Mind if I join you?” Bunny settled heavily into one of the rockers, not waiting for an answer.

“It’s your house, Bun,” Liddie said with a laugh. “You can do whatever you want to.”

“How long have we been friends, Liddie?”

Liddie shrugged. “I remember you from Miss Amy’s Sunday school class, and that’s when we were four. So, close to forty-five years. God, we’re old.” She chuckled, but the laughter died in her throat as he turned to her, his expression deadly serious. “Bunny, what’s going on?”

“How many times have I steered you wrong?”

Liddie swallowed hard. She didn’t think she liked where this conversation was headed. “Never. You’ve always done right by me. Always.”

“How many times have I made you mad?” The barest hint of a smile appeared on his lips, and Liddie had to laugh.

“Oh, about a million, but usually because you were telling me something I needed to hear but didn’t want to believe.”

“So, approximately twenty thousand times a year since we’ve known each other. “ He flashed her a smile. “That’s roughly fifty-four times a day.”

“That sounds about right,” Liddie said with another smile. “Why do I think that you think you’re going to make me mad again?”

“Oh, I know I’m going to make you mad.” Bunny chuckled this time.

“Okay, then go ahead.”

“Tobias Harper.”

“What about him?”

“He came to see you today.”

“Yes, he did.” Liddie studied a whorl in the wood plank under her feet.

“What did you think?”

“I think . . . he wants some answers to some hard questions.”

“What else?”

“I think . . . I owe him those answers, even if he doesn’t know what he’s really asking me.”

“What else?”

“I think he looks really, really good,” she admitted with a straight face.

“Baby girl, that man has always looked really good.” They both laughed then.

“So this is your way of telling me I need to pull up my big girl panties and go see Toby and . . . tell him stuff.”

“Yeah.”

Liddie shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, I thought so. By the way, you didn’t make me mad.”

Bunny grinned. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Liddie threw back her head and laughed, long and hearty.

“Okay, girl. I’ll leave you alone to mull. I just had to say my piece.” Bunny got up from the rocker and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I wouldn’t sit on this too long. Who knows who is going to come out of the woodwork once news gets out that you’re back.”

“If you mean Candy Bristol, oh, I already ran into her. You know she ran right home to that mother of hers to gleefully relay the news that I was a fat grandma.” Liddie snorted. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to be a fly on the wall during that conversation or not.

“Oh, damn. Less than forty-eight hours in town and you’ve already been into the belly of the beast.” He gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back, Liddie. I hope you are, too.”

She nodded, and Bunny slipped back into the house, leaving Liddie alone with her thoughts.

She’d been mulling over her reaction to Tobias all afternoon. All these years, she’d imagined what would happen if she and Tobias ever saw each other again, ever managed to be alone long enough to have a real conversation.

To say the reality fell short of her expectations was a bit of an understatement.

She knew Bunny was right: she needed to tell Tobias everything that happened the night they last saw each other. Twenty years of therapists had been telling her that she needed to tell him, and if she was honest with herself, most likely it wasn’t anything he didn’t already know. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

Yes, she definitely needed to have another conversation with Tobias. The question was, after today, would he want anything to do with her?