"Right. I know. And you could always ask for directions if you need to," Mark said.

"No! Don't stop except for gas and don't talk to strangers and for G.o.d's sake don't stop at a truck stop! Bad things happen at truck stops, you know."

"Yeah, especially since I'm driving this hot car and all. They'll probably hijack it and me and this will be a short story. The end." I smirked at her and she shook her head.

"Just don't do anything stupid, okay? Like sit on a public toilet seat anywhere! And call us?"

"Don't worry! I know how to hold my purse and tinkle in midair!"

"Please!" Mark said in mock horror. "Tinkle?"

Patti and I made nasty, nasty ew faces at each other.

"I might stop and spend the night around Richmond if I'm getting tired. If I do I'll call you."

"That's a really good idea," Mark said. "Something like ten percent of all road accidents are caused by falling asleep at the wheel."

"Yeah, but three times as many men as women," Patti said and I stared at her as if to say, how in the h.e.l.l did you know that? "I looked it up on the Internet."

"Oh," I said and was astonished to see that they had put more actual effort into my trip than I had. But they had done so to bring facts and statistics to light. And because they loved me. And in the end, this was a hallmark day.

We were all busy sighing and smiling, sighing and smiling. Mark was saying that he would be in touch with Dallas and Mel regarding Addison's estate but we all knew there wasn't anything to be gained there, that is, no inheritance for me or for the children. I gave Mark power of attorney so if there were doc.u.ments for me to sign he could do that for me. More sighing, more smiling. Don't worry, don't worry. Bankruptcy is not the disgrace it used to be. Let's see what your real liabilities are, if any, probably nothing. Well, you can't get blood from a stone, Patti said and we smiled and sighed some more.

We were convinced this was the best possible decision for me for the short term. It wasn't exciting or uplifting, because it didn't fit the normal categories of why one usually took a road trip with all their belongings. I didn't feel like Katharine Hepburn playing Jane Hudson in the old fifties movie Summertime, the one where the schoolteacher goes to Venice, the trip of her dreams, to fall in love with some gorgeous Italian man.

Nope. I was going to my aunt's house on Folly Beach in an old Subaru. The truth was something had to be done with me and this was the most benign choice, couched in the excuse of taking care of Aunt Daisy.

I overate at breakfast, probably because of nerves and the fact that I had not indulged in blueberry pancakes since December, when Patti made them for all of us on Christmas morning. G.o.d, Patti was lethal in the kitchen. And there was the fact that when the meal ended, it would be time for me to go. Time to go and let go. Well, I had told myself that this was just going to be a trip and not necessarily a permanent move. I could tell myself anything I wanted to but it was plain to all of us that this trip had every possibility of becoming just that. And along with that new home address came an avalanche of other considerations, not the least of which was how would I adjust? Exactly how small would a new home have to be so that I could afford it? Two rooms and a hot plate? Well, all of that would be based on what I could earn. Doing what? This whole adventure and its background music produced a whopping case of acid reflux. Ugh. I noted that for the foreseeable future I should eat lightly. And before I got on the road, I'd stop at a CVS for some TUMS.

We hugged and hugged and Patti slipped something in my pocket.

"Wha . . . ?"

"Shhh! Later!" she whispered.

"Oh, Patti!" I was tearing up again and so was she.

"Stop!" she said. "Look, you can always come back here and live with us."

"Oh, right! That's not too screwed up or anything. Mark would shoot both of us after a week!"

"No, seriously! I'll teach you how to make cupcakes. They're all the rage now."

"Cupcakes," I said, thinking how ironic it would be to actually be able to support yourself making something like mult.i.tudes of cupcakes. But then, years ago, Pet Rocks, Zoo Doo, and Beanie Babies put some guys into the millionaire's club, as did Chia Pets and any number of weird fads.

"Yeah. Cupcakes."

"We'll see. I'd better get going. The sun's up."

After many oaths to be careful and to call and yes, to be careful some more, I finally cranked up the car and pulled away from Patti, Mark, and my former life in Alpine, New Jersey.

Why was it that I had so many ambivalent feelings about New Jersey until I was leaving it? Now, for the first time, I began to make a list of the many things I'd surely miss-riding my car through swirling leaves down the Palisades Parkway when the Canadian maples turned red and the towering oaks became gold, all the great Italian food, diner food, and sushi, and hiking Eagle Rock Reservation, the first snowfall of the season, crocuses poking their tiny but hopeful purple tight blooms through the last snow of the season promising spring's return, the bridges, the views, proximity to Manhattan with all the temptations and thrills to be found there-Lincoln Center, Broadway, the museums, Carnegie Hall, on and on. The best of this and the best of that-world-cla.s.s everything. Yep, I'd miss it a lot but since I couldn't really afford the tolls much less the parking or the tickets or the meals, I was reconciled, almost, to a period of peaceful harmony and introspection.

Indeed, I spent the first night in Petersburg, Virginia, at the Ragland Mansion, a true piece of Americana, for the reasonable rate of eighty-five dollars for the night, including breakfast. Dinner was a small amount extra and would I like to have dinner? I would. My knees were so cramped I had to stop driving for a while or I'd never stand upright again. I took my overnight bag up to the Magnolia Room and wished I'd had my camera. It was buried somewhere in a box in the car. There was a king-size iron bed from New Orleans and several nineteenth-century gouaches of Naples and Capri on the walls. A charming fireplace, aglow from the small gas flame that danced around the cast-iron log. Best of all, there was a deep bathtub calling out to me to come back soon for a long, hot soak.

"I'll be back, honey," I said to the tub and was happy to see a container of sea salts on the corner shelf, to which I could help myself for a mere five dollars.

I emptied my pockets on the dresser and there was the envelope Patti had given me earlier that morning. I had forgotten all about it. I ripped it open and inside was two thousand dollars in crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, with a note that said, Remember these two things: there's big money in cupcakes and sisters are forever. x.x.x For the millionth time, I choked up and cried, thanking G.o.d for giving me such a wonderful sister. I called Patti right away and promised to save the money to use for something important.

"Spend it however you want," she said. "I just wanted to be sure you had some emergency cash."

I didn't even know what to say. She made me feel suddenly empowered to go and do something, something big enough and grand enough to make her proud of me. The most I had hoped for since Addison's death until that moment was some measure of emotional stability, to quickly achieve financial self-reliance, and to regain my self-respect. But Patti's generosity gave me new strength.

I would be d.a.m.ned if I would let her hear me crying over her gift and I struggled to make laughing sounds to make her think I was just happily surprised and grateful. I knew how much flour she had to sift and how much sugar and b.u.t.ter she had to cream to stash away that much money to give away as a gift. I also knew then that she had not told Mark, because otherwise they would have given it to me together. I wondered how that was, to spend your life with someone from whom you kept all the facts. Maybe everyone had secrets. Addison certainly had had his share of them. Boring old me never had anything going on that was exciting enough to conceal. Hopefully that would change. In fact, I would make it a point to test my limits!

After Patti and I said good-bye, I called Aunt Daisy to say I'd see her the next day. She congratulated me on my level-headedness. I wasn't being so level-headed at all. I was totally exhausted.

"I don't believe in driving at night. Too many crazy truck drivers on the road, all hopped up on something!"

"You're probably right about that," I said. I knew the kitchen was closing, so I said good-bye to her, too, and ran a brush through my hair.

Downstairs there was a ballroom, a solarium, a library, and the walls and decorative ceilings-all of it with innumerable architectural details. It fascinated me, because it was so old and all done by hand. Hundreds of wood rosettes decorated the huge beams, probably hand-carved on the spot by an immigrant from Italy or Poland, some poor fellow perched up on a scaffolding, who spoke two words of English. You could almost feel the ghosts of all the craftsmen and artists who had made this home so beautiful. There I was, recently sprung from a culture that screamed NEW, and Lord, OLD was so much more warm and appealing. It was absolutely charming and I wished suddenly that I had more time to spend there, just to sightsee, since Petersburg, according to the brochures by the front door, had more eighteenth-century homes than anywhere else in the country. Somehow, and by G.o.d's grace, that devil Sherman missed it.

To my delight, I was not the only guest of the Ragland Mansion. There was a family from Pennsylvania there with their children, traveling to Washington, D.C., to see all the monuments and the Smithsonian. All of them had red hair, shining like new copper pennies, and the map of Ireland all over their faces. I had forgotten about spring breaks and winter breaks for schools. Those days were behind me as were so many things, which gave me a sentimental pause, remembering my trips to Boston and Washington with my children. Not now and not ever again. Now I was The Widow. Not to be confused with the merry one. Traveling alone. Tell us your story . . . Thankfully, they could not have been less interested in me. I could've been a Russian spy or an escapee from a mental inst.i.tution for all they knew. But then, would my future be anything more than occasions where I was the silent bystander, of no interest to anyone? Would I shrivel up with each pa.s.sing holiday until I was a wizened old crone? Screw that, I thought, I ain't gonna let that happen. h.e.l.l, I used to dance on Broadway! I had a story! I'd find my way. I would.

The good news was that the McDonough family was a highly conversational and energetic group of five, who kept the innkeeper busy all through dinner, peppering him with questions about the history of the house, local points of interest, and were there any nuts in the bread, because Junior, their five-year-old mouth-breather kid whose finger rarely left the inside of his nose, was deathly allergic. I kept my novel open under my left hand, and avoided them all. The meal was actually pretty good-roast beef, mashed potatoes, and some kind of mixed vegetable ca.s.serole. Dessert was a simple baked apple with a cinnamon stick propped inside against its missing core like a straw, and I washed it down with my third gla.s.s of a mediocre red table wine that was there for the taking. It's good for my cholesterol, I told myself. And my att.i.tude. And after my date with the soaking tub, I slept like someone had shot me dead.

The next morning arrived, bright, clear, and beautiful. I was downstairs in the dining room again, reading the local newspaper, munching away on a warm cranberry-pecan m.u.f.fin and drinking a mug of delicious coffee laced with almond, when Junior the Allergic appeared at the breakfast buffet without the benefit of adult or sibling supervision. I watched his germy little hand approach the m.u.f.fin basket in slo-mo, all the while he was eyeing me, just daring me to say something. I knew his kind. But, still, I had a conscience.

"There are nuts in them," I said.

"So?"

"So, you're not my kid, but I just thought you might want to make an informed decision about how you die."

"Oh." The hand retreated.

"You could probably get pancakes, if you asked nicely. You know, use the magic word?"

"You mean please?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Works like a charm. Usually."

"Okay," he said and practically ran through the swinging door to the kitchen, oblivious to the possibility that someone on the other side may have been charging through to the dining room with a tray of something fragile or a tureen of boiling grits at the exact same moment.

G.o.d protects children and fools went the saying, or something like it, because just as I was finishing up my breakfast, having amused myself over the local Police Blotter Report in the paper, Junior reemerged with the chef and a platter piled high with steaming pancakes, dripping with b.u.t.ter and maple syrup and sausage patties glistening with grease. Junior carried a large gla.s.s of chocolate milk and I thought, oh boy, somebody's stomach is gonna be begging for mercy before they get to the Lincoln Memorial. In that moment, I was not nostalgic for the days of mothering young children. Not in the least.

"Have a great day!" I said and smiled at the little redheaded, freckled sack of h.e.l.l.

The rest of the day should be easy, I thought. Straight down I-95, bang into I-26, whip over to Highway 17, and then get on Folly Road. I'd be at Aunt Daisy's by eight, still in time for supper and to begin the next leg of my odyssey.

Around one o'clock I stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and to fill up the car with gas. I looked around the gift shop to see if there was something I could bring my sweet aunt, well, maybe feisty is the better descriptor, something she'd really want. Naturally, there were lots of things from which to choose: cast-iron cookware; a wall clock that looked like Felix the Cat with eyes that darted left on tick and right on tock; ceramic cookie jars; ap.r.o.ns, towels, and oven mitts that matched; coffee; packaged mixes for cakes and breads; relishes; music; and every kind of old-fashioned candy under the sun. She would probably not want any of it, because like most people over the age of whatever-the-age-is-when-you-get-peculiar, she was very, very particular. I'd buy her something when I got to Charleston, maybe an armload of flowers and a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts that I knew she loved. Ah, Krispy Kreme. Every girl should have a guilty pleasure, no matter her age.

It was around seven-thirty when I rolled into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly on Folly Road. My intention was to zoom in, scoop up several bunches of flowers and a box of glazed sin, and zoom out, but as you might imagine, that never happens. I hadn't been to the Piggly Wiggly in years, and Ruth's Pimento Cheese Spread, the Pig's own brand of breakfast sausage, a jar of pickled okra, and White Lilly Flour seemed to jump in my basket as soon as they caught my eye. I bought a can of boiled peanuts (sacrilege, but it was February and raw ones didn't come around until summer), a bag of barbecued pork rinds, a box of MoonPies, and a six-pack of Cheerwine. All I needed was a loaf of Little Miss Sunbeam white bread and I was set for the duration. And cereal, instant coffee, and skim milk. Addison loathed instant coffee. It occurred to me while I went through the checkout line that the flowers I had chosen were pretty pitiful and that I, The Widow who was no longer accountable to anyone, was no better at making healthy choices than the kid at breakfast in Virginia, but then I wasn't going to eat all this mess at the same time. I would allow myself to indulge in it all bit by bit. It was a good thing my pants had five percent spandex woven in the fabric.

It was very chilly outside, probably somewhere in the forties, but cold and damp enough for gloves. So I pushed the two bags and the flowers into the back of the car, hopped in, cranked it up, stepped on the gas, and bam! I hit something. Hard. I looked behind me again and there was a huge SUV awfully close, in fact, right on the right side of my back b.u.mper. s.h.i.t. A wreck. Great. That's just great, I thought, just what the doctor ordered. I pulled back into my parking s.p.a.ce and put the car in park. I really didn't need this and I don't know why but I burst into tears. Boy, I thought, for someone who never had a history of tears, I had developed some impressive waterworks. But I forgave myself, thinking I was probably overtired from all the driving and just overwrought from the most recent events of my miserable life. All that said, I put my head on my hands that were resting on the steering wheel and sobbed like a four-year-old.

Did I even have collision insurance? Was it my fault? Jesus. Couldn't life cut me some slack? Just a little slack for The Widow please?

There was a tapping on my window and I didn't want to look up. But the tapping continued and I picked my head up, sniffed like a stevedore, wiped my eyes, and lowered my window. There stood the most gorgeous man I have ever seen, with the most sympathetic eyes.

"Are you all right?" he said.

"Yes. No. Yes. No," I began to babble. "Look, my husband just died like ten days ago and I just drove here the whole way from New Jersey to stay with my aunt on Folly and I'm just so tired. I'm so tired." I took a deep breath and waited for him to tell me that I had caused at least a thousand dollars worth of damage to his car but he was just looking at me so I added, "And he left me with no money, too. Our house was foreclosed on and I lost everything, everything I ever owned except for what's in the back of this stupid car that I bought because it was all I could afford." I reached for the box of tissues I had on the pa.s.senger seat, pulled two out, blew my nose, and wiped my eyes.

"Holy smoke, ma'am, that's awful. Sounds like you need a break."

"Right? But no breaks for me! I still can't believe what's happened to me, but hey," I said and tried to smile, "some days you get the bear, right?" I opened my door and got out, my knees somewhat wobbly with shockwaves from the accident. "Let's see what happened to your car."

"It's no big deal. Really it isn't."

I closed my door and stood next to him. Good grief, I thought, this guy is electric or something. I mean, it had been years since I had been around raging testosterone. Well, I shouldn't say raging really, more like any. Yes, any noticeable testosterone emanating from men would actually be the more appropriate way to put it. I was long immune to the allure of any of Addison's friends or any other men who came and went in my life. Who was this guy?

"Wow," I mumbled stupidly, looking at him and alternately appraising the sc.r.a.pe across his left rear b.u.mper, hoping he would think I meant the damage. "Look at your b.u.mper," I said, thinking it might help clarify that The Widow wasn't on the prowl. Yet.

"Entirely my fault. I backed out without looking," he said. "By the way, I'm John Risley."

His fault? I sighed with relief. John Risley. Nice name. Was John Risley trying to spare me the expense of the repairs? He was about my age, I thought.

"Cate. I'm Cate Cooper." I smiled at him. I must've looked like a refugee from Fright Night. We shook hands and then stepped back to examine the cars again. My taillight was in pieces on the ground. And my b.u.mper had a crack in it. "Have to fix that, I guess."

"I'll take care of it," he said. "Don't worry."

"Gosh, that's okay. It's nothing really."

"Look, my car belongs to the college . . ."

"What college?"

"The College of Charleston."

"Oh."

"I teach there. Anyway, our insurance will cover it. I don't know if your b.u.mper needs to be replaced but it looks like a maybe. We can find that out. If you'll just give me your number, I'll call you tomorrow and get it all taken care of right away."

He took off his gloves to pull out his wallet to get a business card and there it was. A wedding ring on the left hand. I knew this was completely ridiculous but something inside of me sank.

"I just need a good night's sleep," I said, which probably sounded like a stupid thing to say. I took his card while I dug around in my purse for a piece of paper, deciding to use the receipt from the Pig.

"You too? I haven't slept through the night for about fifteen years," he said. "Do you need a pen?"

"No, thanks." I leaned on the hood of his car and wrote out my cell phone number. "Yeah, sleep's a precious commodity these days. My mind just whirls around all night. I should write a book."

"Shouldn't we all? I'll call you in the morning?"

"Sure."

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, thanks. I'm fine. Just beyond exhausted in mind, body, and spirit, but other than that?"

"Cate? I'm really sorry about this."

"No sweat, really. I needed a jolt."

"Right. Okay, then . . ."

He smiled at me again, climbed into his SUV that was heavy-duty enough to pull a trailer of horses, started the engine, and then he drove away into the night.

"Wow," I said.

Inside of twenty minutes I was climbing the steps up to Aunt Daisy's front porch. I had called ahead to say I had been delayed by a fender bender but save me a plate of whatever they were having and I would see them very soon.

All the lights in the house were on and I rang the doorbell. I was excited then, smelling the salt rolling in from the ocean, feeling the dampness swelling my hair. I felt myself sliding back to my childhood and I remembered being really young and how complete I felt then. Maybe this would be good for me, to be here, to remember who I had started out to become, to find that girl and resuscitate her, see if she had any life left in her. Maybe if I could find her I wouldn't feel like an old, used up, and fractured middle-aged woman. Maybe I'd try to figure out a way to stay until I could put myself back together again. I heard uneven footsteps.

"It's open! It's open! Come on in! Come in out of that cold!"

It was Aunt Daisy, of course, hobbling toward the door. I tried the handle and the door opened with no problem. I stepped inside, adjusting my eyes to the bright lights.

"Hey!" I said. "Look who's back just like the flu! How are you?" I hugged her so hard I thought she might break but I was so filled with relief to be there at last.

"Close that pneumonia hole!"

I closed the door behind me as quickly as I could.

"Oh! My dear girl! How I've missed you! Let me look at you!" She stood back to give me the once-over and the tears in her eyes tumbled down her cheeks.

"You can't cry, Aunt Daisy! Don't! Believe me! I've shed enough tears for both of us, enough to last all our lives!" I hugged her again and we made our way toward the kitchen, from where the smell of something wonderful was beckoning us to follow. Good grief, we were surely turning into a bunch of weepers.

"Oh, shoot," she said and pulled a tissue from her sleeve to blot her eyes, "look at me!"

"You're fine! How's that foot?"

"Like h.e.l.l. Hurts like h.e.l.l." She blew her nose. "I'm just a sentimental old fool!"

"No. You're not. You're perfect. Now, what do I smell?"

"Okra soup. What else? In this weather? It's so d.a.m.n cold you could lay down and die."