In three hours, she arrived in Corpus with its salty air and seagulls and a long seawall that reminded her, chillingly, of Galveston. She parked the truck in front of the old folks’ home where her mother lived and kept it running. The plain stucco building was fronted by a porte cochere with a wheelchair ramp leading up to the automatic glass doors. Bushy hibiscus and palmetto filled the planters and distracted from the exterior, which was salt-stripped and gray. She could walk through those doors right now and see the woman who had given birth to her. She wondered if Marie would know, just by looking at her, that Kit was her daughter. Was there something in the genes that let you remember, no matter how long had passed, who your children were? She lost her breath thinking about all the questions she had been holding inside. Why did you leave me? How can you go on living without your child? If you could do it again, would you keep me?
It was then that she realized there would be no answer good enough to explain the damage her mother had wrought by leaving her. It was true that Marie had been abandoned when her own mother died, that her father, in his way, had left her, too. But how could she explain leaving an infant with nothing but a blanket and a note, short and ambiguous. How could she correct the lesson Kit would spend the rest of her life trying to unlearn? That an unwanted child must take what she can get. Kit knew she herself had been, at times, a terrible mother. She had fought with Charlie when her daughter needed holding. She’d gone silent when Charlie needed encouragement. She’d acted like a child when Charlie needed an adult. Maybe Kit had no right to judge, but raising a child was the only thing that let her broken heart keep beating.
She remembered how, right after her birth, Charlie crept up to Kit’s breast like a little squirrel and started nursing all by herself. Her eyes were swollen shut, and she was all turned around in a strange and scary world with nothing but the warmth of her mother’s skin and the taste of her milk to comfort her. All Kit had to do was hold her. Though it required nothing of her, it was everything Charlie needed. She ached now, as she wondered if Marie had ever given her that, a moment of comfort before she was left in the cold.
She dragged her sleeve across her eyes, then pulled a pen and a baggie from her pocket. The note she had held and read so many times had become a proxy for her mother. Her throat knotted as she wrote her own message on the back of the original.
For Marie de Clair.
I was something special.
She left the note at the front desk and returned to her truck feeling both lightness and loss. She wept, battered hands held to her face, muffling the sobs, wishing there were someone who could hold her. And then, she remembered. Warm arms skimming her shoulders, her stormy dark hair. Charlie. Whose childhood was nearly over, those moments faded in the wash of much to do and too little time. Who had thrown her weight onto Kit’s wound to save her life. Who still curled up to sleep with her mama. Kit shifted her truck into gear and drove full speed back to Pecan Hollow. Home to her daughter, her wet-cat, claws out, foulmouthed Charlie, her heart unbearably alive and hurting with the gossamer quality of a wound beginning to mend.
Acknowledgments
To my mighty agent, Liz Winick Rubinstein, thank you for opening the door. And to my gentle, brilliant editor, Liz Stein, thanks for inviting me in. I could not be more grateful to everyone at William Morrow, without whom this book would be a big, sprawling document in a file titled “PUBLISH??” To Kaitlin Harri in marketing, and my publicist, Alison Hinchcliffe: thank you for making sure Shadows of Pecan Hollow finds its audience. For the beautiful cover art, thanks to designer Yeon Kim. To production editor, Rachel Weinick, and copy editor, Susan Brown, for their attention to detail. Much gratitude to Zoe Bodzas for her peek-a-boo interjections of praise, and Ariana Sinclair for cheerily keeping me on schedule.
To my readers, Julia Langbein, JJ Strong, Erin Cantelo, Ross McNamara, and Adam Countee, and the Revisionaries writing group, Jay Fernandez, Anne Barnett, Tatiana MacGillivray, Luis Romero. Thanks for helping me make the sausage.
To the staff and participants of Community of Writers, thank you for your devotion to the creative life and for reminding me that I want to be an author.
Thanks to my teachers, especially: Janet Fitch, whose long hair I covet, and whose advice on the craft of writing has stuck with me for fifteen years; Ruth Bellows, for letting me rewrite that Nabokov paper because she knew I could do better; and Toni Attwell, for her support and her implausible enthusiasm for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. To my cousin Katherine Center, for her hard-earned wisdom and encouragement.
To my therapists, Judi, Allison, and Sam, for asking and for listening.
My moral support committee: Annski, Sara, Sarah, Colleen, Mel, Mollie, Dan, Julia, Nangs, and cousin John. Everyone should be so fortunate to have lifelong friends like you.
To my parents: Lucy, for surrounding me with books and for calling me a “great writer” since the moment I learned my letters; Robert, for following his creative compass, and for sharing his love of country living; and Synda, for her world famous pecan pralines and for showing me what a tough-ass Texas woman is made of.
A million thanks to Paty, for caring for my kids (during a pandemic) so I could meet my deadlines.
To my three children, who are all younger than this book: thank you for ignoring my “Do Not Disturb” sign, climbing into my lap, and making me play with you. You taught me that I can always write after you go to bed.
To my sweetheart, Jake: Thank you for doing what you love for a living and taking for granted that I should, too.
About the Author
CAROLINE FROST has a Master of Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California and is a licensed marriage
and family therapist. Although she currently resides in Pasadena, California, with her husband and three small children, her
roots in Texas run deep. Shadows of Pecan Hollow is her first novel.
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