Page 117 of The Long Way Home
I’m halfway down the toiletries aisle, comparing two nearly identical travel-size sunscreens, when I feel someone step too close behind me.
So close that the hairs on my neck lift.
“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice filters through.
I sidestep, assuming I’m blocking the shelf, then I freeze when she says, “Are you… Rachel?”
I turn, confused to see a woman I don’t recognize.
The woman standing in front of me is in her late fifties, maybe early sixties. Pretty in a worn-out way, careful posture, nervous eyes. She twists her hands together like she’s bracing for something.
“Yes?” I say cautiously. “Do I know you?”
“No,” she whispers. “No, you don’t. But I—I know who you are.”
“Oh, okay.” She can tell I’m hesitant to continue this conversation, so she fills in the silence.
“My name is Victoria. Uh, well, used to be Victoria Hayes. I’m Rhett’s mother.”
My pulse spikes, a hot, dizzy feeling rushing through me.
Rhett’s mother. The woman who disappeared. The woman who broke him. The woman he hasn’t spoken of without shaking. I have never met her, and yet I hate her with a devotion that surprises me. Would it be inappropriate to punch a stranger in the sunscreen aisle?
I stare. “You—why—” Words tangle in my throat. “What are you doing here?”
She tries to smile but it falters immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I—I recognized you from pictures. From things people told me.”
My brain stutters. “Pictures? People? Who—”
She lifts her hands, palms out, surrendering. “I know Rhett’s been looking for me. I tried to talk to him the other day, out on the street, but he ran from me.”
A sharp, painful beat pulses through my chest.
“He has been looking for you?” Suddenly, I feel left out. Before last night Rhett and I haven’t been the best at communicating, but I helped him through his panic attack when he saw her. Why wouldn’t he tell me he was looking for her?
Victoria nods, eyes glassy.
“I heard,” she murmurs. “He’s my son. I have always known where he is, what he is up to. Messages passed along by people I have watching him. That’s how I know he tried looking for me for four years. He didn’t give up.”
I should feel compassion. Understanding. Something gentle. But all I feel is heat.
“You knew,” I whisper. “You knew he was looking for you and you didn’t even bother to—”
“I wasn’t ready to be found,” she says quietly.
“He was twelve.” My voice cracks. “You left your twelve-year-old son. Without a word. You—you shattered him. Do you understand that? You don’t just leave a kid and say you ‘weren’t ready.’ You broke him. You—”
“I know.” Her voice trembles. “I know. And I’m not asking for forgiveness. I just—” She presses her fingers to her mouth, gathering herself. “I just needed to see him again.”
Anger boils under my skin, fierce and protective but not unfamiliar. “Then why are you talking to me? Why not go to him, if he was looking for you?”
“He doesn’t want to see me.”
“Are you shocked by that? You went twenty years without him. What is the sudden change?”
“I saw him,” she says. “On the news the other month.”
I blink. “What?”
