This was home. She’d only been gone a week, and it felt like a month.
And yet…her heart was still back in Georgia, wrapped in hospital sheets and a grandmother’s failing breath.
The wheels touched down with a soft screech, and the plane slowed to a crawl on the runway. Reva barely noticed the bustle of passengers rising, collecting bags and exchanging polite smiles. She moved on autopilot, her mind crowded with questions she hadn’t dared answer.
Inside the terminal, the crowd parted—and there they were.
Lucan broke free from Kellen’s grasp, his little legs pumping. “Mama!”
Reva dropped her bag and scooped him up, burying her face in his curls, breathing him in like a woman starved. Kellen caught up, his expression equal parts relief and concern.
“You okay?” he asked, brushing her hair from her face.
She nodded, swallowing back the lump that had lodged there since Atlanta. “Thanks for retrieving my car and then coming back to pick me up. Let’s get out of here.”
They made it to the car without much conversation, Lucan already chattering in the back seat. “Mama, I found a rock that looks like a potato. It’s in my pocket—wait, no…it was in my pocket.”
Reva smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
As they pulled onto the highway, Kellen glanced at her. “So...how was it? How’s Grand Memaw?”
Reva exhaled slowly, turning toward the window. “Not good. Worse than I’ve ever seen her. She’s skin and bones now, but still stubborn as ever. One minute she’s making perfect sense, the next she’s falling asleep mid-sentence.”
Kellen didn’t say anything, just reached for her hand.
Reva continued, her voice quieter now. “Mama’s already talking about the funeral—where to hold it, who to call, what kind of hat she’ll wear. She means well, but she’s steeped in social expectations. Always has been. Her world runs on handwritten thank-you notes, heirloom linens, and the quiet currency of reputation.”
“And your brother?” Kellen asked. “Is he helping?”
Reva hesitated. “Quincy’s fine. He and Scarlett haven’t changed much. But…he made a comment that stuck with me. Said something about ‘waiting on the loan paperwork to come through,’ but then he changed the subject real quick. When I pressed him, he finally admitted he’s buying a Cirrus SR22.”
Kellen’s eyebrows lifted. “An airplane?”
“Apparently a very nice one.”
“Yeah, those planes can run a half mil, new.”
Reva nodded. “Seems like an outrageous splurge to me. He’s usually better with money than that. It’s probably nothing, but…I don’t know. Something felt off.” She didn’t mention that he was seeking to sell the pecan farm.
Kellen pulled onto Highway 26 and headed north. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
She turned to face him fully then, her voice steady. “I do.”
A beat of silence passed. And then—quietly, deliberately—Reva said the words she’d been holding since she left Georgia.
“I think I need to go back. For good.”
Kellen’s jaw tightened slightly. He didn’t look at her, but the air in the car seemed to shift. Even Lucan, humming to himself in the back, grew suddenly quiet.
Reva stared out the windshield, heart pounding, waiting for her husband to say something.
Anything.
Kellen kept his eyes on the road, the lines blurring past in the headlights. One hand stayed on the wheel, the other still loosely holding hers, though she could feel the tension in his fingers now.
“You mean…move to Georgia?” he said at last, as if testing how the words tasted in his mouth. “Like—move move?”
Reva nodded, barely. “She asked me to take over Sunnyside Acres. Said it was my calling. Said she didn’t want it to leave the family.”
