Page 45 of Trailer Trash

Or had she?

I’d taken her word for it, which was unlike me. I’d trusted a certified psychopath.

What if she’d never met my mother? What if she didn’t know anything about my past at all?

But she knew about Beasley and the azaleas. Even if she was lying about Momma, and my gut told me she wasn’t, she knew plenty.

I felt Jed’s arm around my back, his hand resting on the rise of my hip. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He gave me a dubious look but didn’t say anything. “How do you want to explain my presence?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but I’m sure you have.”

“I want to play it like I did last night—I’m your boyfriend. People will be less likely to mess with you if they think you have a no-nonsense guy interested in your well-being.”

“Okay,” I said, a little more pleased with the idea than I had any right to be. “But that’s not really an issue here.”

“I guess we’ll find out. It’s been five years. Do you know if she’s still here?”

I pointed to the car in her driveway. “I’d recognize that gold Charger anywhere.”

Taking another breath, I headed across the gravel drive, the wind blowing my skirt. I grabbed the edge to keep from flashing the whole neighborhood. I was equally excited and terrified. I was eager to see Zelda, but as soon as she opened her door, a can of worms I’d buried—literally—five years ago would be opened too. I wasn’t sure I could handle facing what I’d done.

But then I felt Jed’s hand on my back, and I drew in a deep breath and climbed the two short steps to the faded cream and brown trailer. The metal door felt hot under my fist when I knocked on it.

Several seconds later, the door opened, revealing a hunched-over elderly woman.

Zelda. I almost gasped. With her now-snow-white hair and deep wrinkles, she looked like she’d aged a decade. “Neely Kate? Oh, my stars and garters!” she exclaimed, then started to cry. “You came home.”

“Hey, Miss Zelda.”

She reached for me, pulling me over the threshold, and memories washed over me. I tried to focus on the good as the woman who’d been my surrogate mother pulled me into an embrace. “You came home,” she repeated. “I thought you were dead.”

I wasn’t a tall woman and I was wearing flat sandals, but Zelda’s arthritis must have gotten worse—she was shorter and more hunched over than I’d remembered. I led her to the worn blue-and-white plaid sofa I recognized from my time here.

I could see why she might have feared the worst. I felt guilty for hurting her, but I’d been young and stupid at the time, too concerned about self-preservation to spare a thought for anything or anyone else. Now I realized how selfish I’d been, especially leaving her with Stella.

I gave her a sad smile. “I’m alive.”

“You never came home.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She clung to me for several long seconds, silently crying while Jed stood by the now-closed door. He scanned the small space, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. Zelda’s trailer looked pretty much the same as it had years ago, only a lot more used. Same thrift store furniture. Same worn brown carpet, although there were more worn spots.

But there was also the same feeling of being enveloped in love.

Zelda seemed to be recovering, and when I noticed a gleam in her eyes, I knew I was in trouble. “Where have you been, girl? Did you fall off the face of the earth? Or maybe you was put in deep freeze like that Lieutenant America.”

I laughed. “Captain America, Miss Zelda.”

“Captain, Lieutenant, he can be the damned general for all I care; I’m sitting here wondering how you couldn’t bother to pick up a phone for five years.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Zelda. I have no excuse.”

She pointed her gnarled finger in my face. “You were runnin’.”

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