Page 10 of My Mistake To Make

‘Missy, please. Hey, how are you?’

She wraps me in a hug and starts to take some of my bags from me. I’m about to protest when she pulls a trolley to her side and begins loading it up.

‘Is this all you brought?’ I nod, thinking I brought a ridiculous amount of stuff. ‘You’re moving your whole life here, and this is it? Meh,’ she shrugs, ‘this means we get to go shopping.’

‘Well, I don’t know if I’m moving yet. I’m here for a bit, but I don’t know how long. Most of my stuff is in storage.’

Missy chuckles as she pushes the trolley toward the exit.

‘This is South Carolina, honey. Once you’re in, you won’t want to leave.’

I smile politely, too tired to ask any questions for once in my life and follow her out.

The warmth hits me as we exit the airport. It feels lovely on my exhausted body, like a hug that, to be honest, only makes me sleepier. I hope Missy isn’t expecting a rousing conversation.

‘This is me,’ Missy says as we reach her car.

We load up my bags and settle in. The sun through the windows has warmed the seat, and I find myself sinking into it.

‘You must be so tired. Why don’t you get some shut-eye?’ Missy says with a soft smile, and guilt tugs at me.

‘We’ve only just met. It would be very rude of me to just climb in your car and fall asleep.’

She laughs. ‘Cara, you’ve been traveling for an entire day, and we’re going to be driving for a couple of hours. We have plenty of time to get to know each other. Get comfy.’

As she pulls out of the car park and starts to drive us toward my new home, I realize that, rude or not, there’s nothing I can do to stop my eyes from closing. With the gentle murmur of the car on the road and the sun warming my skin through the windows, I give in and grab that shut-eye my new pal suggested.

The rumble of tires on gravel shocks me awake, and I open my eyes, taking a moment to figure out where I am.

‘You back in the land of the living?’ the sweet voice next to me says, and I turn to see Missy smiling at me. ‘You wereout.’

Missy laughs as I check for drool and sit up to rake my fingers across my scalp and wake myself up.

‘Welcome home, honey,’ Missy says softly, holding up a key, singular, and I widen my eyes, first at her and then at the building in front of us.

I hadn’t realized we were parked in a driveway.

‘This is it?’ I ask quietly, and she nods, handing me the key.

‘Mhmm… fixer-upper.’

We reach for the door handles at the same time, and both climb out of the car. My body protests my movement, groaning with the stiffness of a full day of travel, but I don’t have time to worry about that because in front of me is the shell of what was clearly once a very beautiful house, but is now close to a teardown.

‘Needs a lot of work.’

I’m starting to panic. ‘Work? I can’t believe it’s still standing.’ Fuck,fuck. What the hell have I done?

‘You okay?’

‘What am I going to do?’ I ask, trying not to cry when I feel her arms wrap around me. God, I can’t remember the last time I had a hug that wasn’t from my dad, and Missy has done it twice in one day.

‘Come on, come back to my house. We’ll play with my kid for a bit. Then, when he’s asleep, we can get takeout, drink wine and figure this out.’

She guides me back toward her car, and I turn to look back up at the house one more time.

Help, Mum, I send up silently. Please show me what I’m supposed to do here.

Roberta never did anythingwithout having a plan. That’s what Missy told me as we drove away from the house, my face hidden behind my hands. I couldn’t speak. I could hardly think straight as we drove the hour to pick up her son and thento her house. Now I’m sitting on her sofa with a glass of wine in my hand, contemplating if it’s still too soon to book a flight home while she’s putting her three-year-old son, Jonah, to bed.

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