He sped off, and Jo heard the clatter of his shoes on the stairs before she collected her wits enough to yell, “I’m not changing my mind, Jerrold!” The man ought to realize she couldn’t focus on her work when she had question after question tumbling inside her head and no satisfactory answers.
Why wouldn’t her mother have told her if they had family in Tennessee? Though she strained to remember, the terrible event remained elusive.
Jo assumed there were gaps in the history her mother rebuilt for her after she’d emerged from the coma. Two neurologists and a psychologist agreed she didn’t have retrograde amnesia, but rather dissociative fugue brought on by an intense desire to suppress something she couldn’t bear to face. Still, the accident and everything that came before it had been excised from her memory. And yet it made no sense that her mother would’ve told Jo about her dad’s death and not her cousin’s—if she’d had one. It was even less likely that Jo would’ve grown up privileged in Boston, and a sister in some obscure Tennessee town. A place called White Oak Valley. That simply didn’t make sense.
Logic told her that something was very wrong. But what if she started digging and found a truth so awful she’d wish it had stayed hidden?
She had pills for these migraines, but it had been a while since she’d needed them. She took one and lay down. When the pain eased she began to reflect on the number of times since the accident she’d felt disoriented—as she did now. The only cure was to immerse herself in music. Her violins were all packed, but she tore the box open. Soon the empty third-floor flat echoed with the rich, haunting sounds of Brahms’s “Tragic Overture.”
Jo played until her neck got stiff and the fingers of her left hand felt permanently curved around the violin’s slender neck. But when she finally set down her bow she knew the uncertainty would suffocate her if she allowed it. Whether it destroyed her career or not, she had to get answers.
LESS THAN A WEEK LATER, after consulting a travel agent, Jo pulled her mother’s ten-year-old Subaru off the road in Tennessee at a misty mountain overlook. It had been her original intention to sell the car, but now she was glad she’d kept it. Here she was, less than thirty miles from White Oak Valley.
The bravado that had carried her this far began to falter.
Jo had passed through Sevierville, and Gatlinburg, tourist towns the travel agent had circled on the map. The agent had pointed out that even at the end of May it was still early for the bulk of tourists who flocked to the area for fishing and local crafts.
Resting her arms on a waist-high guardrail, Jo glanced down andwas able to identify the silvery thread of a river far below—probably the same one she’d crossed an hour back. The view across the wide valley was partially shrouded by a lavender-gray haze that left Jo oddly breathless. The scene seemed vaguely familiar, as if she’d seen it before—perhaps in a movie or a magazine.
Shivering, she rubbed her upper arms. It was cooler here in the mountains than it had been when she left Boston. Frustrated that nothing had brought back any concrete memories yet, Jo returned to the Subaru, donned a cardigan and drove on to the tiny hamlet of White Oak Valley.
Beautiful full-blooming dogwood trees lined the main business street that seemed to bisect the small community. Most of these tired buildings had no doubt seen generations of residents come and go: the same families who still lived in the rambling older homes almost hidden by the towering trees.
White Oak Valley lay off the well-traveled tourist highway, and therefore didn’t seem to boast the chain restaurants and motels Jo had passed in Gatlinburg. That town’s claim to fame was a shrine honoring a TV show, The Dukes of Hazzard. Jo had never seen it; her mother always said TV wasted time. So, Jo gassed up the Subaru, but didn’t tour Cooter’s Place as the young station attendant suggested.
After driving from one end of White Oak Valley to the other, disappointment skidded through Jo. She’d expected something to trigger a breakthrough. Nothing did.
Her stomach growled. It was two hours past her normal lunchtime, and Jo decided to try a café across from the city park—Mildred’s, according to a weathered sign. Faded lettering on two plate-glass windows advertised sandwiches, soup, chicken and dumplings, and breakfast at any hour. Jo parked in front of an oldfashioned drugstore and walked back to the café. She pushed open a creaky screen door that released the enticing aroma of home cooking. A 1950s-style soda fountain with chrome-and-red-leather stools ran the length of the room, separating a steamy kitchen from a few tables and vinyl upholstered booths, all of which were empty. Freshly cut sweetpeas sat in fruit jars on every table. Overhead, three white fans would do little to cut the heat billowing from the kitchen once summer arrived.
Choosing a booth near the door, Jo helped herself to a menu tucked behind a remote selector for an ancient jukebox that was even now belting out a country song. She paused a minute and paged through the list of tunes, but realized she’d never heard any of them. Her musical repertoire consisted of symphonies by Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and other classical artists.
A pregnant waitress about to pop the buttons off her aqua-blue uniform waddled up. “What can I getcha?” she asked, cracking her gum.
“A bowl of corn chowder and tea,” Jo said, thinking that would warm her up. “Anything herbal you have will be fine.”
The waitress turned and hollered toward the kitchen. “Mildred, we got any tea back there ‘cept the sweet tea Esther made up? We got a customer wanting herbal.”
A scrawny older woman, whose age was more apparent because of hair cut short and dyed jet-black, emerged from the kitchen. She took one last puff of her cigarette before crushing the butt in an ashtray next to the cash register.
“We’re plumb out of any but Southern sweet tea until I get to the grocery—Well, now.” The woman broke off and her jaw sagged even before she collided with the gum-chewing waitress. “Lawdy, if this don’t beat all. Everybody thought you was dead, missy.”
A shiver wound up Jo’s spine, and the menu slipped from her hand. “You know me?” she managed to ask.
At first the woman cackled in disbelief. But as Jo struggled to leave the booth, the woman—Mildred—backed away. “Don’t believe in ghosts,” she hissed. It was plain she didn’t intend to say more.
“Please,” Jo implored. “I’m not sure who you think I am. I recently discovered some high-school yearbooks from this town. I came here hoping for…I don’t know…information, I guess.”
“If you ask me, and nobody did, if you are Colleen Drake and you ain’t dead, you’ve got some explaining to do. Not to me, but to poor Garret Logan.”
“L-Logan?” Jo stumbled over the name. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “I…my mother never mentioned anyone by that name.”
The woman’s top lip curled, and she took up a rag to start swabbing the counter. “No surprise there. With her puttin’ on airs and thinking you and her were better than anybody born in these parts? May the good Lord forgive me for being blunt, but this town and the Logans will be better off if you trot on back to whatever snooty place you been keeping yourself.” Mildred eyed Jo’s linen slacks and her matching purse and sandals, then proceeded to shake another cigarette out of a pack of Marlboros she dug out of her apron pocket. Lighting up, she blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
Jo choked on the smoke. Her head began to throb, and she could hardly breathe. This woman couldn’t have known her mother if she thought Sharon Drake put on airs. Everything she did was to promote Jo’s career.
But it was pointless to argue. Instead, Jo left the café. Making enemies wouldn’t get her anywhere. And there was no question but