But there was more to her bad feelings. A fear she hadn’t ever told anyone—not even Landon. The most terrible part about her time in Paris. Ashley forced the frightening thought from her mind.
“Well then, you should be happy now!” Kari raised her hands high, her eyes sparkling. “You are going with your incredible husband to Paris for your eighteenth anniversary, and you are going to sell your paintings in the one place you never thought you’d sell them.” She lowered her arms and grinned. “What could be more exciting than that?”
“Fine.” Ashley laughed again. “I’m excited. I can’t wait!”
Kari helped her box up the paintings, two per container. But the whole time Ashley couldn’t shake the distant memory. What about the darkness in Paris? What if it was still waiting for her? She forced the questions from her mind. It wasn’t possible. Kari was right. She should be thrilled about Paris.
As a young girl, she had dreamed of selling her work there. This was a dream come true.
Maybe if she told herself often enough, it would be true.
When the twenty pieces were boxed, she and Kari loaded Landon’s old pickup truck and drove the collection to the UPS store in Bloomington. An hour later—after they had provided the gallery information and paid for the boxes to be sent two-day insured shipping—they returned to Ashley’s house and Kari hugged her. “I have to go.”
“Thanks for your help.” Ashley had always been closest to Kari, and today was no exception. “You understand, right? The reason this is hard.”
The smile Kari had kept in place most of the day faded. She hugged Ashley once more, longer this time. “Of course. I was the first to hug you when you walked through the front door home from Paris the first time. Remember?”
“I do.” Ashley felt tears gather in her eyes, but she blinked them back. “It’ll be fine. Landon’s always wanted me to go back, to make peace with the city.”
“With more than the city.” Kari studied her. “It’s time.”
Ashley nodded. “I know. Thanks again.” She stepped back and watched Kari get into her car and drive off. The trip to Paris still troubled her. Maybe if she told Kari the details she’d kept secret for twenty-three years, this conversation would be different. Her sister might even tell her to stay home. But there was no verifying the part she never talked about. How could it harm her now, so many years later? The whole thing might’ve been only in her imagination.
Something Ashley should’ve forgotten by now.
When Kari’s car was out of sight, Ashley turned to the old Baxter house, the place where she and Landon and their kids had lived for so many years. Ever since her father had married dear Elaine, and the two had bought their own home nearby.
Looking at the house from this vantage point—out front and with time on her hands—Ashley let the happy memories come. She could see herself and her siblings spilling out of the family van the day they moved here when she was ten. Back when she thought home could never be anywhere but the place they’d left in Michigan.
The next morning their moving van had been late, and her father had come up with a quick idea. “Let’s paint the porch! We can all work together!”
Dad had gotten buckets of white paint and half a dozen brushes, and they slopped and painted and spilled enough paint over the porch until finally it looked brand new. Then the five of them—Brooke and Kari, Ashley and Erin and Luke—had all run out back to the creek and washed off. But not before they’d found the big rock at the stream’s edge. The handprints they’d left there that day were mostly rubbed off from weather and time.
But in her mind, Ashley could still see them as clear as they’d been that long-ago day.
She blinked and the view of the front porch changed, and she could see herself getting into the car to go buy milk… and Luke’s friend Jefferson Bennett was running behind her. “Can you give me a ride home, Ashley?” There had been no warning, no way to know that Ashley’s life and his would never be the same again. That a drunk driver would cross the line and Jefferson would jerk the wheel and take the hit. Or that the sixteen-year-old boy would live just a week longer before leaving them.
Another blink and Ashley pictured herself stepping out of her parents’ SUV two summers later with a pair of suitcases and a pregnant belly, home from Paris. Ashley could see the girl she’d been back then. Without faith or hope or a desire to ever come home. Yet there she was, surrounded by the love of her mom and dad. Heading back through the doors of the house she had still loved so well.