Home Before Dark by Susan Wiggs Page A

to be the sort of mother Glenny Ryder had never been. Other kids went home to warm houses with lights glowing in the windows and a kettle of soup simmering on the stove. Luz and Jessie went home to mind-numbing hours of bad TV and cold cut sandwiches.
    â€œIt was getting pretty dark,” she continued, “but we wanted one more turn around the pond. Just one. I think it was the first time I ever beat Jessie in a race. But I fell wrong, skidded into a tree. My ankle wouldn’t work, and my elbow bled like a fire hose. There was no way I could walk. The light faded, fast as a falling curtain. She built me a fire. I never knew until that day she could even build a fire, or that she always carried a pack of matches on her. She walked back to town to bring help. I’ll never know how she found her way through the woods. She did the impossible and showed up in Edenville right when folks were turning on the six o’clock news. Everyone thought she was crying wolf, so she climbed into the sheriff’s cruiser, started the engine and the emergency lights. I’ll bet she would have driven straight into the woods if they hadn’t agreed to go along. Jessie’s strong when you test her. It’s just that she’s never been tested, not much, anyway.”
    â€œBecause you’ve always made the tough choices,” Ian muttered.
    Luz’s hackles lifted. “What?”
    â€œYou heard me.” He took a deep breath, visibly groping forcontrol. “I’m sorry, honey. But you’ve got to admit, you’ve been more than a sister to Jess.”
    Reaching out with her hand, she brushed a stray lock of hair from her daughter’s brow. What an adventure it was, being Lila’s mother. Sixteen years ago, Luz had made a left turn in the middle of her life, and she was still heading down that unexpected road into uncharted territory.
    Ian drove with negligent precision, his wrist draped over the top of the steering wheel as he negotiated the rippling hills and unexpected curves. He swerved to detour around the carcass of a deer, scattering the crows scavenging a meal.
    â€œYou doing okay, Mrs. B?”
    She nodded, though a wave of exhaustion rolled over her, heavy as cane syrup.
    â€œSo what’re we going to do about our resident juvenile delinquent?” he asked, direct and lawyerly. “I say we ground her for life.”
    Luz nodded. House arrest. Still holding her daughter’s hand, she vowed that everything would change from now on. She swore it. Things were going to be different. They were going to lay down the law.
    From this moment on, nothing would be the same.

CHAPTER 8
    â€œYou’re like my mom but you’re different,” Scottie declared.
    Jessie’s youngest nephew stood on a kitchen stool, wearing a Don’t Mess With Texas T-shirt and nothing else. After a sleepless night, it had been all Jessie could do to get the other two fed and dressed and up the road to the school bus. Scottie had been parked in front of the TV, his head propped against the ribs of his sleeping dog, for the past forty minutes.
    â€œI’m like your mom because I’m her sister,” Jessie said, pawing through a plastic mesh basket of clean laundry she had found on top of the clothes dryer. “Aha.” She produced a pair of Spiderman underpants. “I bet these are yours.”
    â€œNope. Owen’s.”
    â€œBut you could wear them, for today.”
    â€œNope.” He regarded her with a solemnity that aged him beyond his years.
    â€œWhat about these?” She plucked out another pair, these bearing a green cartoon character she didn’t recognize.
    â€œWyatt’s. Where’s Mom?” The solemnity teetered on thebrink of despair. Jessie knew without asking that Scottie had never before awakened to a house with no mother.
    Sucks, doesn’t it, little guy?
    Jessie didn’t know what she would do if he cried. With urgent