That was also the trip that Jiminy had taken to drinking buttermilk. Lyn had never known a child to actually enjoy the taste. She watched Jiminy first sip some by accident, assuming it was regular milk. Lyn had waited for her grimace, but the girl simply cocked her head in surprise and took a longer sip. Not realizing that she wasn’t supposed to like it, she’d started drinking it regularly.

Lyn had been watching little Jiminy pour herself another tall glass of buttermilk, and wondering if there’d be enough left for the biscuits she was supposed to make, when an unfamiliar car turned down the long gravel lane. The sight of a strange vehicle made Lyn anxious, and she reflexively reached for the big butcher knife, not entirely sure what she planned to do with it. Lyn was relieved when she recognized her late husband’s niece climbing out of the car. She watched her unstrap a toddler from the backseat—a toddler whom Lyn had previously only heard jabbering and squealing in the background of a phone conversation. A toddler who turned out to look very much like her beloved Edward: the same eyes, those same steady features. The kind of face you wanted to drink up to calm yourself down. Lyn loved Bo as soon as she saw him, even from that distance; even through a window that needed cleaning.

She had hurried out the kitchen door, wondering whether Willa would mind this unexpected visit, considering she wasn’t particularly partial to children or interruptions. But to Lyn’s relief, Willa had looked up from the science labs she’d been grading on the porch and calmly introduced herself to Edward’s niece and her toddler. And then Jiminy had appeared, glass of buttermilk in hand.

“Who’s that?” she asked, pointing her little finger at him.

“His name is Bo, Jiminy,” Willa said.

Edward’s niece had flashed a look Lyn’s way, which Lyn ignored. Yes, the girl was named Jiminy. No, Lyn didn’t want to talk about it.

“Oh,” Jiminy said. “Would he like some buttermilk?”

And she had sat down beside Bo on the grass in the sun. She tried to teach him patty-cake. Bo laughed and grabbed at her fingers and made her shriek. Lyn hadn’t known how to feel, watching them. She’d looked to Willa to break them up, or let them play. But Willa had returned to grading her papers, forfeiting her prerogative to pass judgment.

Edward’s niece hadn’t stayed long—not at Willa’s farm, not even in Fayeville. She’d already decided that her destiny lay elsewhere, and no amount of disappointment could sway her from its pursuit. No amount of responsibility, either. She simply shrugged it off, the way happiness had shrugged her.

Bo, on the other hand, had remained right there in Fayeville from then on, passed around from relative to relative, looked after by the group of them. His mother and grandmother had kept “Waters” as their last name, instead of giving any credence to the men who had dipped into and out of their lives, so Bo blended right in with the family. But he and Jiminy had never crossed paths again. Jiminy had traveled from her home in southern Illinois to visit Willa a few more times, but Lyn hadn’t had charge of Bo during those visits. And then Jiminy had stopped coming altogether once she’d become preoccupied with trying to be an adult.

But here she was now, walking into the kitchen, all grown. Lyn handed her a glass of buttermilk that she’d absentmindedly poured as she’d reminisced. Jiminy looked understandably confused. Realizing what she’d done, Lyn almost snatched the glass back, but Jiminy was already raising it to her lips.

“Thanks,” she said quizzically, taking a sip.

Just as she had when she was a child, she drank with her eyes wide open. And she still didn’t wince at the sourness.

 

Two hours later, as Lyn sat folding pillowcases by the window, she watched Bo cross the freshly mown lawn to the house. She heard him let himself in the front door, cross the entryway, and knock on Jiminy’s door. Lyn stayed in the kitchen, quiet and still.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” she heard Bo say.

“I’m glad you did,” Jiminy answered, so light and free.

“Have you recovered from your allergy attack?”

“Nearly.”

“Well, I got revenge for you,” Bo assured. “That grass won’t be bothering anyone for a while.”

“Thanks, I owe you one. Are you taking off now?”

“I was gonna go see a superstore about a HORSE. Wanna come?”

“Definitely,” Jiminy replied.

Lyn heard them make their way to the door, where they must have run into an unsuspecting Willa.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?” she heard Willa exclaim, her voice mildly alarmed.

“Everything’s fine,” Jiminy replied. “I’m headed into town with Bo.”

“Oh,” Willa answered.

And Lyn knew the exact O her mouth was making.

“Do you need anything?” Jiminy asked.

“I don’t know,” Willa replied uncertainly. “I don’t suppose so.”

“Okay, see you later then!” Jiminy replied sunnily.

Then the door closed, and Lyn heard Willa sigh deeply.

“Shit,” Willa said, thinking she was saying it to herself.

In the other room, Lyn closed her eyes and slowly shook her head.

 

A few weeks later, Willa sat anxiously by the kitchen window, shuffling Jiminy’s stack of Polaroids and peering out into the darkness every few minutes. Willa had been surprised that Jiminy just left her photos around for anyone to look at, for anyone to judge. She flipped through them again, quickly enough that she created a moving picture of her granddaughter’s last few weeks—a cascading waterfall of captured moments.

There was Bo holding a basketball at HushMart, and Bo pointing to a diagram of the human heart with a mock-serious expression, and Bo lying on his back in the field behind the barn. There were a lot of Bo. There were a few of Willa, too—looking up from her crossword with a questioning expression, coming in the door with an armful of azaleas, sitting in her porch chair smiling. And there was Lyn baking biscuits, and carrying a stack of towels, and gazing out the kitchen window. But mainly the Polaroids were of Bo. Willa looked up from them and out into the night again, willing headlights to appear.

She hadn’t waited up for someone to come home since her daughter was a teenager, and she felt out of practice. And a little ridiculous. First of all, waiting for her daughter hadn’t ever kept her out of trouble, nor had it forged the meaningful, long-term relationship Willa had always assumed she’d enjoy with her offspring. Secondly, and more to the present point, her granddaughter was twenty-five and therefore didn’t have a curfew. But she was a young, uncertain twenty-five, spending time in a place she didn’t understand, and Willa felt apprehensive. Jiminy and Bo had been thick as thieves lately, but they generally called it a night at a decent hour. It was now nearly eleven. What could they be doing?

She dialed Lyn, who answered the phone sounding surprised.

“Lyn, it’s Willa. Have you heard from Bo?”

“No, ma’am. What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

Willa felt guilty for introducing that note of panic into Lyn’s night. But at least she wouldn’t be the only one worrying now.

“Nothing, it’s just Jiminy’s not back yet and it’s getting late. You don’t know where they went?”

“Bo’s staying at his friend’s this summer, not with me. And he’s grown now, so I don’t ask too many questions.”

Willa knew this was a reasonable position, but still, it angered her.

Lyn waited for Willa to say something more. She could feel the tension on the line; could sense that she was being blamed for Jiminy’s whereabouts. And though she liked that odd little girl just fine, there was only one Jiminy she’d ever wanted to be responsible for, and that Jiminy had been taken from her. She didn’t have the energy for another, even if she was Willa’s granddaughter.