Eventually, Joshua rolled the truck to a stop. We sat in silence for a moment, and a strained air began to settle over the cab. I could feel Joshua’s hesitancy radiating out from him like the vibration of a tuning fork.

“Joshua? You’re awfully quiet.”

“I guess I’m nervous about the surprise. I want you to like it, but I don’t want it to make you sad.”

“Sad?” I asked. “Why would I be—?”

I stopped my sentence short, letting the question hang in the air. I did so because that very air brought with it a familiar but long-forgotten scent.

Honeysuckle.

No matter where we’d parked Joshua’s truck, I shouldn’t be able to smell the plant. We were now into the chill of fall, and early frosts had already laid waste to most of Oklahoma’s flowering plants. Yet the scent hit me now, strong and floral and sweet.

The Mayhews didn’t grow any honeysuckle in their yard, nor did I remember passing any in my afterlife wanderings. But I recognized the smell instantly, mostly because it had grown in thick, amber-petaled vines all along the fence line of my childhood home.

I turned my head toward the passenger side window and dropped my hands from my eyes. Sure enough, I faced the little clapboard house, the one in which I’d spent my first—and only—eighteen years of life. The honeysuckle vines around the house weren’t in bloom right now, but their flowers had blossomed for so many years that the smell must have permeated the very air of this place.

“My home?” I whispered.

“I had an idea,” Joshua explained, “of how you might see your mom. Just for a little bit. Do you think you’d want to?”

I stared more intently at the house. A rusted sedan now sat parked in the driveway. The light of the TV flickered out from the front window, shifting from yellows to blues in the dusk.

I thought about Joshua’s suggestion for a moment longer and then nodded.

Joshua got out of the truck and came around to my side, opening the door and pretending to pick something off the floorboard in case my mother was watching us. I slid out of the truck, my eyes never leaving the front door of the little house.

Joshua and I didn’t speak as we made the short walk across the yard. We tromped over the porch, only Joshua’s steps echoing against the floorboards. Joshua raised one hand and, with a reassuring nod at me, rapped upon the door.

I heard shuffling from inside the house, and my head began to swim. A few seconds later, when the door swung open, I thought I might faint.

There she stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. Elizabeth Louise Ashley. Liz to her friends. Mom to me.

She’d aged horribly, much worse than I’d expected. Yet beneath the new wrinkles, and the ten extra years of sadness, my mother’s beauty still shined. Anyone could see that.

Her dark hair glistened in its ponytail, with only a few grays for decoration. Her large brown eyes—still fringed with thick lashes—assessed the young man on her porch before she gave him a full, gracious smile.

“May I help you?” she asked in that lovely voice, the perfect one that had read me every bedtime story I knew. The one she’d fought not to raise during each and every stupid fight we’d had—fights I wished, more than anything, I could take back now.

“Mom,” I moaned, unable to catch the word before it spilled out of my mouth.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Joshua clench the hand closest to me. I could tell he wanted to reach out to comfort me. I loved him for it, even if he couldn’t act upon his impulse right now.

Instead of clasping my hand, Joshua cleared his throat and answered my mother. “Yes, ma’am. I’m here on behalf of my church youth group. We’re . . . um, passing out Bibles, door-to-door.”

I arched one eyebrow at Joshua. To my surprise, he pulled a tiny green Bible out of his coat pocket and held it out to my mother. You have to give it to him—the boy came prepared, New Testament and all.

My mother smiled, her incredulity mirroring mine; but she reached out and took the book from Joshua. She looked down at it, and her smile softened. Keeping it in one hand, she ran a thumb across its surface.

“You know,” she mused, still staring at the book, “my daughter had a little one just like this. Same color and everything.”

That struck Joshua silent. Even I didn’t know what to say. I swallowed, feeling an odd thickness in my throat.

My mother must have sensed Joshua’s discomfort, because she finally looked back up at him. For a moment I thought I could see the glitter of tears along the rims of her eyes; but she turned her head, and the shadows covered her face.

“I’m sorry. That was . . . random.”

“Not at all, ma’am,” Joshua insisted. “I’m sure your daughter is wonderful.”

“Was,” my mother said quietly. “And yes, she was. Wonderful.”

Guilt twisted in my core like a spasm. The thickness in my throat hardened, and I tried not to choke on it. But the cough I suppressed still threatened to spill over my eyes in the form of tears.

Unaware of the little drama I carried out in front of her, my mother turned to glance over her shoulder at something inside the house. A shaft of light illuminated her face, and I took a last, precious look at it. When she turned back to Joshua, my view vanished.

“You know, Mr. . . . ,” she prompted.

“Mayhew. Joshua,” he offered, and then cringed. Perhaps he’d wanted to give her a fake name, although there was no real need for subterfuge. She would never know the connection between Joshua and me.

“Well, Joshua,” my mother went on. “It’s only eight o’clock. I have some sweet tea, if you want to come inside, or something.”

Joshua’s eyes flickered over to me, but I shook my head no. Although part of me desperately wanted to sit beside her for hours, listening to her voice and trying to catch of whiff of her perfume, another part of me did not. Possibly, it was the part of me that focused on self-preservation. I’d come back later, I knew; but I couldn’t be here right now. I had the suspicion that, if we stayed here much longer, I might fall apart entirely.

“No, ma’am,” Joshua said, shaking his head. “But that’s awfully nice of you. I’d better just go . . . pass out the rest of the Bibles.”

“Sure,” my mother said with a nod.

Even in the dark, I could see her faint smile.

“It’s been a pleasure, Joshua Mayhew,” she said, extending her Bible-free hand. “A brief one, but a pleasure nonetheless.”

Joshua laughed quietly. With a smaller version of his usual grin, Joshua took my mother’s hand and shook it.

“It’s been a pleasure for me, too, Mrs. Ashley.”

Then he blanched and dropped her hand. I could almost hear the screamed regrets in his head: she hadn’t told him her last name, so he shouldn’t have known it. How would he explain this? How could he?

My mother, however, didn’t call him out on this error. In fact, she didn’t say anything further. She simply raised one eyebrow and flashed him that half smile of hers before turning to close the door.

“The mailbox—,” Joshua began feebly. But my mother had already shut the door, effectively leaving Joshua with the secret of why this eighteen-year-old boy knew her last name.

Joshua and I drove in silence for a while, although he didn’t take us home.

I didn’t need to ask where we were going as he pulled off onto a steep, pine-thick road. Although he’d never taken this route before and the night had fallen dark and heavy around us, I instinctively knew our destination.

After winding his way up and around the sharp curves that the road cut through Robber’s Cave Park, Joshua parked the truck next to a small clearing. He left the truck running but turned off its lights and then exited to help me out of the cab. I stood to one side while he leaned back in and fiddled with the MP3 player, which he’d attached to the truck’s stereo.