Page 1 of In This Moment

Chapter One

Today sucked. She’d had a lot of terrible ones in her twenty-eight years on Earth, more than half of those years in this very town, but today took the whole pig pickin’ cake.

In the little black dress she’d worn to the funeral, heels dangling by the straps from her numb fingers, Rebecca Moore stood on the front lawn outside of her grandmother’s modest home and chewed the inside of her cheek. She should go inside. Should get affairs in order and her life together. Both seemed like too daunting a task and beyond her ability. So, she stayed put.

Darn fibromyalgia pain was bad right now. The strangling achiness in her neck and shoulders, which never went away, was probably angrier due to stress and lack of sleep. She’d forgotten to take her vitamins this morning and do her stretches, too, which wouldn’t help. Her own fault. Drugging weariness tugged at her, threatening to pull her under. Another fibro side effect, yet triple-fold today.

Sunlight beat down on her just to contradict her sour mood. Humidity was thicker than her first crush’s head. Cicadas buzzed and a brown thrasher chirped its three-note whistling call from a nearby magnolia tree. The air smelled like rain from this morning, roses from her grandmother’s bushes, and faintly of barbeque from a neighbor’s backyard. A lawnmower ground a grating whine off in the distance. Children laughing and playing carried on the breeze from the other direction.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. A short visit for holidays, sure. Not long-term. Not forever. Certainly not because she’d failed or because Gammy had…

Her chest hitched, and she choked on a sob. Hot tears splashed her cheeks, blurring her vision.

Gammy was gone. The woman who’d raised her after her parents’ tragic car accident, who’d tended to boo-boos and broken hearts from stupid boys, was gone. She wasn’t supposed to die, either. Especially not without Rebecca by her side, holding her hand.

Yet, they’d buried her today just the same.

Last time Rebecca had been home was Christmas. A few short months ago. Gammy had been fine. Fit as a fiddle. She’d cooked a sugar ham, sweet potato casserole, fried okra, and gingerbread cookies thick with icing because that was Rebecca’s favorite. Didn’t matter that it had been just the two of them or that they’d eaten leftovers for two days. That was all they’d needed was each other, full bellies, and a roof over their heads.

The fact she’d never get to eat Gammy’s cookies again was enough to slice agony through her midsection. Mortality was such a fragile thing. Rebecca had taken it for granted.

The house wasn’t in the best part of town, but in Vallantine, Georgia, they never had the need to lock their doors. A tiny two-bedroom ranch with a postage stamp yard. Cookie-cutter, like all the others on the block, with white vinyl and blue shutters fading more by the year. There were at least twenty casserole dishes on the front stoop, a product of townsfolk offering comfort. That’s what people did in the south when someone died. They cooked. En masse. More than any one person could consume. She’d almost forgotten that since moving north.

She vaguely wondered if that made her a Yankee now. She’d left their small, picturesque town to go to college in Boston straight out of high school, then had secured a job at a newspaper right after graduating. Big hopes and bigger stars in her eyes. She was gonna be somebody. Do great things and change the world. How foolish. Ten years since she’d called Vallantine home. She’d been unsuccessful at all of it, including fulfilling her life-long dream of becoming an award-winning journalist.

Perhaps she didn’t belong anywhere.

A loud pop, followed by the chaotic rev of a dying exhaust jarred her from her thoughts. It took mere seconds for the noise to click her memory. Shaking her head, she dropped her chin and sighed.

Good ole Harold. Dear Lord, how was he still alive? He had to have been a hundred years old when she’d started grammar school. The only thing that might be passably older than him was dirt. Or his pickup truck.

She turned her head, watching the blue rust bucket chug up the street, pausing to deposit mail in the boxes by the curb. He waved to the kids playing a few houses down. Nostalgia smacked her upside the head as he stopped by her box and stuck his face out the window. His white strands ruffled in the breeze and sunlight made the deep grooves of his wrinkles seem like caverns.

“Miss Rebecca, as I live and breathe.”

Yeah, the live and breathe part was hard for her to believe, too. “Great to see you, Harold. How are you, sir?”

“Gettin’ along, gettin’ along fine. Sorry to hear about Mavis passing.”

Her, also. She’d had to hear it from bestie number one, Scarlett, via phone. “Thank you, sir.”

He held his arm out the window, offering a stack of envelopes. “How long you stayin’?”

She took the mail from him. “Indefinitely.” No sense in stirring the rumor mill by elaborating. Small towns were synonymous with gossip, and Vallantine was the crowned victor.

“The Bookish Belles together again.”

“Yes, sir.” That wouldn’t be a hardship. Rebecca and her two best friends had been inseparable since in-utero. Their mothers had started the first bookclub in town and named each of them after great southern literary heroines. The town had dubbed them the Bookish Belles in kindergarten, a nickname that stuck through the years. “It’s good to be home.”

A truth wrapped around a lie.

“Bet it is, darlin’.” His eyes narrowed. “You ain’t gonna be actin’ like no Yankee, are ya?”

Strange she’d had the same thought. “I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

She swore, a good part of the south behaved as if the Civil War was still kicking. Or that they hadn’t lost.

“Glad to hear it. Have a blessed day.”

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