Coming Home

Coming Home by Priscilla Glenn

Twelve years.

She had been doing this every year for the past twelve years, but somehow—even after all that time—it still managed to have the same effect on her.

She should have been numb to it by now, or at the very least, prepared for it. But the second Leah Marino turned onto the familiar little side street, her eyes began to sting with the threat of tears.

She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as she took her foot off the gas pedal and allowed the car to coast unhurriedly down the narrow one-way road.

It always seemed so strange to her that something could be exactly the same and yet completely different all at once.

She’d seen these same houses—packed together like books on a shelf—and their tiny fenced-in yards countless times. She could vividly remember coming down this street in the back of her mother’s car, blowing her warm breath against the window and drawing little hearts in the fog that magically appeared there.

But that was years ago. Another lifetime.

The neighborhood seemed to get smaller every year, although she knew that wasn’t possible. The cars parked along the street were always different. Some of the houses changed color; some of the gardens were ripped up or the driveways refinished. But at its core, it was the same little world, one that was as comfortingly familiar to her as it was painfully remote.

Leah felt her heart quicken in her chest just before the house appeared on the right, and her shoulders dropped in relief as the unchanged yellow siding came into view, standing out against the whites and blues of the other houses. She was always afraid that one year, she’d drive down to discover the new owners had re-sided the odd-colored exterior, erasing the warm, pale yellow that always reminded her of sunlight on sand.

Her mother once told her that if happiness were a color, it would be yellow.

Leah jumped as the rude squawk of a horn burst into her consciousness, and her eyes flew to the rearview mirror. The large black pickup riding her tail was apparently in no mood to accommodate her sentimental pace, and if she had to guess, she’d say the three cars lined up behind him weren’t either.

She sat up straight as something like panic fluttered in her chest. She wasn’t ready to leave yet. She’d barely gotten a chance to see it. And she knew if she kept driving, she wouldn’t loop around and come back. The spell of this little street would be broken; reality and logic would set in, reminding her that this little yearly indulgence was as childish as it was inconvenient.

The horn blasted again, and this time, the burly man behind the wheel thrust his hand at the windshield, shouting something at her through the glass.

Her eyes scanned the road frantically, trying to find an open space on the cramped little street, but there was nothing. The cars were lined up bumper to bumper along the sidewalk, the only openings being the entryways for those houses that had garages. Not that it mattered. Even if there were an open space, there was no way she could pull off parallel parking on this narrow street, especially not while the kind gentleman behind her cheered her on by blaring his horn and shouting obscenities.

Without thinking, she pulled into the empty space in front of the house’s one-car garage. The black pickup sped by with another beep of its horn, this time accompanied by a middle finger pressed up against the passenger window.

“Merry Christmas to you too, sir,” Leah said, watching the other cars pick up speed again as they continued down the road.

When the last car had passed, she exhaled, turning to look through the passenger window at the little yellow one-story house. Although she’d been making this trip ever since she could drive, never once had she actually parked the car. It was always a slow crawl down the street, a few quick seconds to take it in, and then back to real life. But now that she was sitting there, so close she could practically reach out and touch it, she was completely overwhelmed by the desire to see it. Really see it.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Leah cut the engine and got out of the car, pulling her hands inside the sleeves of her coat as she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the sharp December wind. She walked around to the passenger side and leaned against the car with a tiny sigh, allowing her eyes to drift over her childhood home.

Up close like this, it looked more modern than she remembered. The shutters—although the same brick color they always were—were brand new. In fact, the windows themselves were new too. The one she remembered to be in the kitchen was now a pretty bay window with a few small pots of daffodils lined up along the sill.

Leah’s eyes roved over the fence that led to the side yard. It had definitely been repainted recently, and there were newel posts on either side of it now. Even the short driveway leading into the garage had been repaved.

It was different. Someone was changing it.

She chewed on the corner of her lip, feeling like a bratty child as she tucked her chin into her scarf. What did she expect would happen? It had been fifteen years since she had lived in that house. Did she really think the owners would never make improvements? Never make it their own? She should have been happy that someone was taking good care of it.

The wind picked up again, and she closed her eyes, inhaling slowly through her nose. It still smelled the same—like bike rides and jump rope and hopscotch and barbecues.

And her mother.

That, at least, never changed.

With her eyes still closed, she could see them so clearly, all of them in the side yard: Leah and her brother coloring on the pavement with sidewalk chalk while her mother read a book in a fold-out beach lounger that took up half the yard; her mother showing Leah and her little sister how to tie a jump rope to the end of the fence so they could jump double Dutch even when it was just the two of them; the tiny garden in the corner of the paved yard that her mother used to water with the hose while Leah followed behind with a Fisher Price watering can, giving her enormous, imaginary flowers a summer drink.

“Hello.”

“Jesus Christ!” Leah gasped as she whipped her head up, bringing one hand to her heart.

The woman standing before her was tiny, dwarfed in an enormous red coat that hung to her knees. If it hadn’t been for the white hair, cropped short around a deeply wrinkled, olive-toned face, Leah might have mistaken her for a child.

She smiled at Leah’s reaction, her dark eyes nearly disappearing as her face crinkled further.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Leah dropped her hand from her chest with an embarrassed laugh. “No, it’s fine. I just didn’t realize anyone else was out here.”

The woman nodded, her broad, amused smile transitioning into a more demure one. Leah smiled in return, expecting the woman to be on her way, or at the very least, to say something else. But she just stood there, staring at her with expectant eyes, as if Leah were the one who initiated contact with her.

The silence wore on, slowly but surely crossing into awkward territory, and Leah cleared her throat as she began fiddling with her scarf. The woman tilted her head, waiting, and it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps this lady wasn’t all there.

“So, um,” she said, playing with the frayed edges of her scarf, “are you out for a walk?”

“No, honey. I came out to see you.”

“Me?” she asked, pointing to herself.

The woman chuckled—a soft, sandpapery sound—before she nodded, and Leah pulled her brow together.

“I’m sorry…do I know you?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” the woman said, her face crumpling with the amused smile again.

Leah shook her head as if to clear it, trying to place this strange woman.

“No. I mean…not that I can remember,” she said after a few seconds, hoping she hadn’t just offended someone from her past.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

Leah looked over the woman’s shoulder at the little yellow house. “Not for a long time.”

“Just about a year, I’d say.”

Her eyes flew back to the woman. “What?”

“You come every Christmas,” she said with a smile. “You were here last year.”

Leah straightened her posture, saying nothing, and the woman nodded. “It was you. In this car,” she said, gesturing to the car behind Leah. “I remember your face. I may look to be past my prime, but I’m still sharp as a tack,” she said, pointing to the side of her head with a gloved hand. The bulky black gloves, like the coat, looked far too large to be hers.

When Leah still didn’t respond, the woman said, “Last year you stopped in the road. I saw you through the window, and I thought, ‘Now what would make such a pretty girl look that way?’”

She swallowed. “What way?”

“Heartbroken.”

Leah dropped her eyes as the woman said, “By the time I got my old bones out here to check on you, you were gone.” She tilted her head, looking Leah over before she added, “You don’t look heartbroken this year. Just…pensive. But I still thought I should check on you.”

Leah pressed her lips together, her eyes trained on the ground. She knew she should say something, but she was far too taken off guard to formulate a response.

After a moment, she glanced up at the woman; her smile was unfaltering, but she still had that expectant look in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Leah finally said. “I don’t mean to bother you. It’s just…I used to live in this house…and I’m running some errands near here…and whenever I’m in the area, I like to stop by and just…remember, I guess. I shouldn’t have—”

“Nonsense,” the woman said, cutting her off. “Don’t you apologize for anything. I like a girl who remembers her roots. Besides, what’s Christmastime without a little nostalgia? I think it’s wonderful.”

The look in the woman’s eyes mirrored the unadulterated kindness of her words, and Leah was suddenly consumed with the inapt desire to wrap her arms around this tiny stranger.

Instead, she exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Thank you. For understanding,” she said, pushing herself off the passenger door. “Anyway, I really need to get going, but it was nice meeting you. Merry Christmas.”

She started to walk back around to the driver’s side, stopping short when she heard the woman say, “Did you want to see the inside?”

Yes. You have no idea how much.

She took a tiny breath before she said, “No, that’s okay. Thank you anyway, though.”

“Don’t be shy, honey. I just put on some tea. You can come inside, warm up for a bit. Maybe see your old room?”

Leah dropped her head back slightly, blinking up at the sky. She shouldn’t do this. For one, it was getting late. She still had errands to run, not to mention the hour drive back home. Plus, despite the fact that this woman seemed harmless enough, there was always the possibility that she was the innocuous decoy, leading an unsuspecting young girl into the house where a demented serial killer waited.

She laughed to herself, shaking her head at the absurdity of that last thought before the woman added softly, “I’d love some company for a while. Just one cup of tea. I know you have to be on your way.”

Leah turned to look at her then. She was still smiling, but her happy expression belied the unmistakable sadness that infused her last words. And for some inexplicable reason, she couldn’t tolerate the thought of this woman being sad, even for one minute.

“Okay,” Leah said, taking a tentative step forward. “But I really can’t stay long.”

“One cup,” the woman promised, her eyes disappearing amid a mass of wrinkles before she turned and shuffled up the short driveway, unlatching the gate that led to the side yard.

Leah followed, stepping into the yard behind her, and without warning, her eyes welled with tears.

It looked so small. How could it be this small? Leah could distinctly remember playing tag with her brother and sister in this yard, the three of them running back and forth until they were gasping for air. Now, she could probably walk across it in four long strides.

She glanced around, her vision blurred from her unshed tears. The yard had been repaved as well. The block of concrete, the one they had imprinted with their handprints and initials, was gone. Her chin quivered slightly as she lifted her eyes, looking at the opposite end of the yard. The tiny garden where her mother had grown her tomato and basil plants had been blocked over with pavers. A barbecue sat above it.

Leah hadn’t realized the tears had spilled over until a gust of cold wind amplified the trails of warmth on her cheeks, and she wiped at them hurriedly before glancing up to see the woman standing in the doorway, holding it open with a sympathetic look on her face.

“You’re okay, honey,” she said softly, and Leah forced a smile as she walked past her and into the house.

It felt like being transported back in time, and she placed her hand on the wall beside her, feeling completely disoriented.

The furniture was all wrong, of course, and the walls were a different color, but the layout was still the same, so that if she stood there long enough, she could see the house as it was when she lived there. Her eyes traveled to the half wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, where two small vases of daffodils sat. She could remember her mother leaning on it with her elbows, peeking out at them with a smile while she fixed dinner.

The sharp whistle of a tea kettle brought her back to the present, and she blinked quickly, dropping her hand from the wall.

“Sit, sit,” the woman said, gesturing to the small dining area past the kitchen. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Leah walked through the kitchen and over to the table, unzipping her coat and hanging it on the back of one of the chairs.

“Can I help you with anything?” she asked, watching the woman disappear in the nook of the kitchen.

“That’s okay, thank you. Just tell me how you take your tea.”

“Two sugars, no milk, please.”

Leah heard the clinking of glasses and spoons before the woman turned the corner and approached the table with a steaming teacup in each hand. She placed one in front of Leah and patted her hand before she sat across from her, wrapping her frail hands around her own cup. Without her enormous jacket, she looked even tinier, wearing a thin white sweater and gray slacks. Leah’s eye was immediately drawn to her neck, where a bulky-looking ring was hanging from a thin gold chain. It looked like a man’s class ring.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even introduce myself, did I?”

Leah lifted her eyes from the incongruous piece of jewelry to see the woman extending her hand.

“I’m Catherine.”

“Leah,” she said, clasping her hand gently.

“Well, Leah, thank you for agreeing to have tea with me.”

“Of course. Thank you for inviting me,” she replied, lifting the mug and blowing gently on the steaming liquid. She took a careful sip, humming contentedly as the warmth spread down her throat and through her stomach, and Catherine smiled the smile that crinkled her face and made her eyes disappear.

“The house looks wonderful, really,” Leah said, looking around. “Especially the outside. You fixed it up beautifully.”

“Yes, well, my boy helps me with that,” Catherine said softly. She was quiet for a moment as she looked down, and Leah watched her shoulders rise as she took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before lifting her head. “So,” she said, taking a sip of her tea, “you’re here running errands?”

Leah nodded. “I come down here every year to get some things I need to make Christmas dinner. I live about an hour north, but no one makes homemade pasta like the Italian deli a few blocks over.”

Catherine quirked her brow. “Giovanni’s?”

“Giovanni’s,” Leah confirmed with a laugh, and Catherine nodded sagely.

“I can’t blame you. I can see driving an hour for the food there.”

“It’s kind of a Christmas tradition in my family,” Leah said with a shrug.

“Traditions are good. They help keep memories alive.”

Leah’s eyes flashed to Catherine, but she was looking out the window, her expression unreadable as she carefully sipped her tea.

“So,” Catherine asked after a minute, bringing her eyes back to Leah, “which room was yours?”

“Um, that one,” she said, gesturing to the room off the dining area.

Catherine smiled as she motioned toward the doorway. “Go ahead.”

Leah looked at the door before exhaling heavily. Seeing it made her chest ache. Why was she doing this? What was the point? Why did she continue to torture herself, year after year, by coming here?

She placed the cup on the table before she stood and walked the short distance over to the bedroom.

Leah took a few steps inside, trying to reconcile what she was seeing with what she remembered. The walls were grayish blue, no longer the lavender from her childhood. A single full-sized bed was pushed up against the wall where the bunk beds she had shared with her sister had been. She walked over to it and sat down, running her hand over the soft navy blue comforter.

Beside the bed was a wooden table with a small television and another vase of daffodils. As Leah leaned over to smell them, she noticed the far wall; the shelves that had housed all her dolls and stuffed animals were gone. Instead, there were several framed photos. The largest one was a close-up of two little boys, their arms thrown around each other, grinning from ear to ear. They were pointing at each other’s mouths, drawing attention to the fact that they were both missing their two front teeth.

Leah smiled, glancing around the room one more time. It was simple, neutral, and no longer hers.

“It’s my guest room,” Catherine said from the doorway, and Leah jumped up from the bed, rubbing her palms down the sides of her jeans. “My boy stays here from time to time when he—”

They both turned as the front door swung open, banging unceremoniously against the wall.

“Gram?” a voice called. “Do you know some stupid a*shole parked in front of your garage? I had to park two blocks over and lug this thing all the way back here.”

Catherine glanced at Leah, smiling apologetically before she said, “Language, Daniel.”

“Sorry,” the voice said. “Just let me get your tree set up and I’ll have one of my guys tow it out of here.”

Leah’s eyes widened in alarm just as Catherine looked at her, waving her hand dismissively in his direction.

He turned the corner then, propping a Christmas tree up against the wall in the living room. Leah could see him through the half wall as he unzipped his jacket with one hand and pulled off his gray wool hat with the other, revealing a mess of inky black hair sticking up in every direction. He placed his keys on top of the wall and ran his hand through his hair, walking through the small kitchen toward the dining area. As he entered the room, he lifted his eyes, stopping short as they made contact with Leah. Against the dark tone of his hair, they were shockingly blue.

“Hi?” he said, his brow furrowed.

“Daniel, this is Leah.”

He cast a confused look at Catherine before bringing his eyes back to her.

“I’m the stupid a*shole,” she said.

She heard Catherine chuckle beside her, and Leah smiled when Daniel had the good graces to look embarrassed.

“Sorry…I…”

“It’s okay. Sorry about making you have to walk with that tree,” Leah said, motioning toward the living room.

He nodded, still looking sheepish, and Leah couldn’t help but find his embarrassed awkwardness somewhat charming. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to put him out of his misery or needle him just to keep it going a bit longer.

“Listen,” she said, walking over to the chair to grab her coat, “if your tow truck guy is already on his way, could he just tow me over to Giovanni’s? That’s where I’m headed.”

He stared at her for a second before amusement flickered behind his eyes, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

“That’s sort of frowned upon,” he said, and Leah nodded in feigned disappointment.

“Damn,” she said, zipping up her jacket and wrapping her scarf around her neck. “Well, in that case, I better get going. Catherine, it was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for everything.”

Catherine shuffled toward her, holding out her arms, and Leah leaned down and gave her a gentle hug. “Anytime, dear. Next year you come right on up to this door and give it a knock, okay?”

“I will,” Leah promised, and Catherine gripped her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“You take care, honey.”

As Leah made her way toward the door, she nodded a farewell to Daniel, and he returned the gesture; it looked like he wanted to say something, but he remained quiet as he stepped to the side to let her by.

The cold air seemed less offensive as she made her way across the tiny yard, feeling strangely at peace for the first time in a while. Leah unlatched the gate, and as she turned to close it behind her, she let her eyes rove over the yard one last time. This time, she pictured Catherine sitting in a folding chair, drinking a cup of tea while she watched her grandson paint the fence. Leah smiled to herself as she closed the gate and turned toward the street.

She had just reached her driver’s side door when she heard his voice.

“Hey, hold up a sec.”

Leah looked up to see the screen door swing closed behind Daniel as he jogged toward the gate and unlatched it. “Listen,” he said as he approached her car. He shoved his hands in his pockets before clearing his throat. “I just wanted to apologize. For the whole stupid a*shole thing.”

And there it was again—that endearing self-consciousness.

“It’s okay,” Leah said. “It was a stupid a*shole move.”

He smiled, revealing a set of dimples. “Yeah. It was.”

Leah laughed to herself as she reached into her purse for her keys. “Wow. That was seriously the worst apology ever.”

She heard him chuckle, and when she looked up, he was still smiling down at her with those dimples. “Well, damn. Can I try again?”

She shrugged. “Go for it.”

Daniel reached forward and opened the driver’s side door for her, bowing slightly as he gestured for her to have a seat. “Here you go, milady. My deepest and sincerest apologies for insinuating that you were a stupid a*shole.” He straightened. “How was that?”

“Better,” she said through a laugh as she turned to get into the car. Just before she slid inside, her eye landed on the bay window in the kitchen. She could see Catherine sitting alone at the table, cautiously sipping her tea.

As Leah sat in the driver’s seat, she turned to look up at Daniel. “I’m glad she has you,” she said sincerely. “Don’t ever stop taking care of her.”

She watched his dimples fade as his expression fell, and then he nodded.

“It was nice meeting you,” Leah said, reaching to close the car door, and he stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets again.

“You too,” he said absently.

She smiled as she pulled the door shut and started the car. Daniel held up his hand as he took another step back, and she returned the gesture as she pulled out onto the street.

She liked the idea of him taking care of her. That kind of thoughtfulness was a trait that jumped out at Leah now, because the absence of it should have been the red flag in her last relationship.

Whatever the reason, she couldn’t deny that it was extremely attractive when a guy was as family-oriented as Daniel seemed to be.

And there was something inherently attractive about a guy with manners, too—the way he had apologized for his language, how embarrassed he’d looked at having offended her.

Who was she kidding? There was something attractive about him. Period.

The pitch-black hair with the light eyes, the masculine jaw with the boyish dimples. He had the kind of face she wanted to stare at, just to appreciate the way all the pieces complemented each other.

But of course, she hadn’t done it. That would have been weird, and completely inappropriate.

For a second, Leah found herself wishing she knew his last name. After all, if he had a Facebook profile, she could examine his picture as long as she wanted without it being weird—

The second the idea crossed her mind, her cheeks flooded with heat, even though no one was privy to the ridiculousness of that last thought but her.

What the hell was she doing?

Since when was she the kind of girl who stalked guys on the internet? Since when was she the kind of girl who pursued guys at all? She’d never been the one to initiate a relationship. Besides, she hadn’t been involved with a guy in two years, nor did she have any desire to be.

Although, if all it took to turn her into a creeper was a pair of dimples and some manners, maybe there was some subconscious part of her that was tired of being alone.

Leah shook her head at that; she wasn’t tired of being alone. She was just tired, and it was making her scatterbrained. She leaned over and turned on the radio, letting the music chase away her thoughts as she pulled up to the intersection.

Giovanni’s was about six blocks from her old house; it was an old-fashioned, family-owned Italian deli that hadn’t changed since she’d first been there with her parents as a little girl. The red awning out front was faded and worn so that it appeared to be almost pink, and the white block letters that spelled out the store’s name were now a murky, grayish color. As Leah pulled onto the deli’s block, she was reminded of something else about the place that never changed: there was a line nearly out the door. It was a popular deli on an average day, but during Christmastime it was borderline legendary.

She began her usual routine of circling the block, looking for an open parking space, and on her second pass, amazingly, she noticed a spot had opened up right in front of the door. She cut the wheel sharply, pulling into the spot without using her blinker and glancing around to make sure she hadn’t just snagged the spot from someone who had been waiting.

No one.

“Wow,” Leah said to herself, cutting the engine and grabbing her purse. In all the years she’d been shopping there, she’d never even gotten a spot on the same block, let alone right out front. “Must be my lucky day.”

She stood in line for almost half an hour, tossing items into her handheld basket as she inched up the aisle toward the counter. When she finally reached it, she placed her order, remembering to include the fresh ravioli her brother loved so much he would often eat them raw before she could cook them.

As the girl behind the counter totaled up her order, Leah reached inside her purse to grab her wallet.

And that’s when she noticed it.

Her stomach lurched as she shook her wrist. “No,” she whispered in a panic, pushing up her sleeve with her other hand. “Shit!” she said, rummaging frantically through her purse, hoping it had just slipped off and fallen inside.

“Is something wrong?” the girl behind the counter asked.

“I lost something,” Leah said, stepping up to the counter and abruptly dumping the contents of her purse over the top of it. The girl jumped back, a startled expression on her face as Leah sifted through the change, makeup, and receipts scattered across the counter.

She whipped around in a frenzy, her eyes scanning the floor behind her. “Did anyone see a bracelet?” she asked, nudging her way through the line of people behind her. There were a few mumbled no’s and sorry’s as she scoured the floor near the shelves, looking for any sign of it.

“Miss, I’m sorry, but there’s a line,” the girl at the counter called.

She continued pushing through the crowd until she had a clear view of the door where she came in. She needed to retrace her steps.

“Miss,” the girl called again.

“Yeah, okay,” Leah said, her voice detached as she walked backward toward the counter, bumping into people as her eyes continued to comb the floor. By the time she made it back to the front of the line, it was clear that any sympathy from the crowd had now transitioned into annoyance.

She swiped everything on the counter back into her purse and absently paid for her things, turning every few seconds to inspect the floor behind her again.

The woman handed her the box of food, and Leah balanced it precariously in her arms as she rushed out of the deli. It was freezing, but she could already feel a cold sweat breaking out over her back.

She hurried to her car and threw the box inside before turning to examine the sidewalk. The distance between her car and the door to the deli couldn’t have been more than five feet, but she already knew that if she had dropped it outside, it would most likely be gone. Someone would have picked it up and taken it, no doubt. Still, she continued her futile search of the sidewalk for another ten minutes.

By the time she got back in her car, she felt like she might actually be sick. Leah arched her back, struggling to remove her jacket in the confines of the driver’s seat before shaking it out frantically.

“Please,” she said to herself, hoping it would fall out from one of the sleeves.

It didn’t.

She contorted her body, checking under the seats, in between the seats, under the pedals, next to the console.

Nothing.

“Shit,” she said again, gripping the steering wheel with both hands and letting her head fall back against the seat.

It was gone. She had lost it.

She had lost her mother’s bracelet.

Leah’s father had given it to her mother on their eighth wedding anniversary, the same day she had given birth to Leah’s little sister. Embedded in the white gold of the bracelet were three solitary diamonds. One for each baby she had given him, he had said.

Leah had always loved that bracelet, even before it was hers.

With a pathetic sniffle, she started the car and pulled dejectedly out onto the street. She had combed the deli, scoured the sidewalk, torn apart her purse, shook out her clothing, searched the car. Someone must have taken it. There was nowhere else it could be.

She approached the stoplight at the end of the street, still fighting tears, when suddenly it hit her.

Leah bolted upright in her seat. “Oh my God,” she said to herself, slamming on the brake before making an outrageously illegal U-turn in the middle of the intersection. The orchestra of horn blasts only served to amplify her urgency as she sped down the road that would take her back to her old house.

Traffic had started to pick up, making the ride back to the house twice as long as it should have been. By the time she pulled onto her old street, it was already dark. There were still no parking spaces on the road, so she pulled into the empty space in front of Catherine’s driveway again, throwing the car in park and not even bothering to turn it off before she jumped out. She ran to the gate and unlatched it, flinging it open as she bolted across the tiny yard.

Leah knocked on the door, standing up on her toes so she could see in the tiny window along the top of the door. After about a minute of silence, she knocked again, this time a bit more forcefully.

Still nothing.

Desperate and having no shame, she walked to the window on the side of the house, cupping her hands around the side of her face and pressing her nose against the glass. The house was completely dark.

“Damn it,” she whispered, walking back to her car and plopping inside before she slammed the door closed behind her. She reclined the seat and cranked up the heat, fully intending to wait there until Catherine returned.

Forty-five minutes later, she was starving, she had to go to the bathroom so badly she thought she might cry, and it had begun to snow. The lights were still off in the house, and no one had returned. Was it possible that Catherine had already turned in for the night? If that were the case, she would feel like a complete moron waking the poor woman up and dragging her out of bed for something that might be a lost cause anyway.

Whatever the case was, Leah knew she couldn’t stay there any longer.

With a frustrated sigh, she sifted through her purse and pulled out an old receipt and a pen, leaning on the dashboard to scribble a quick note to Catherine.

Catherine,

I think I may have lost my bracelet in your house. It’s really important to me, so if you find it, could you please give me a call?

She signed it with her name and her phone number before throwing the pen somewhere on the passenger seat and exiting the car.

Leah walked quickly through the side yard, blinking back the snowflakes that peppered her vision as she opened the screen door and closed the note inside before running back to the car.

Twenty minutes later, she had just merged onto I-95 when a loud bang nearly forced her heart out of her chest. She gripped the wheel firmly, glancing in her side-view mirror; she couldn’t see anything that she might have collided with, and it definitely didn’t feel like the car took a hit.

Just as her body began to relax back into the seat, the car began to pull awkwardly to the right.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Leah groaned, putting her blinker on and fighting her way through the traffic over to the shoulder. She put the car in park and crawled over the console, opening the passenger door and hanging her head outside as snowflakes clung to her hair and eyelashes. Sure enough, the right front tire was completely flat.

She collapsed back into the car, pulling the door closed behind her and covering her face with her hands.

Lucky day, indeed.