Living next to her mother was both a curse and a blessing. A curse because Louella Brooks was retired with nothing to do but pry into everyone’s business; a blessing because Luella was retired and could watch Pippen when he got out of school. And as much as her mother drove her insane, with her “yard” art and rambling stories, she was a good grandmother and it was nice not to have to worry about her son.

Lily eased onto the highway toward Lovett and switched on the radio to a country station. She’d never wanted to raise her son alone; she was raised by a single mother herself. Louella worked hard to support Lily and her older sister, Daisy, pouring coffee and slinging chicken fried steak for long hours at the Wild Coyote Diner. She wanted better for own child-Phillip Ronald Darlington, or, as everyone called him, Pippen. Lily was twenty-eight when she gave birth to him. She’d already known her three-year marriage was in trouble but held on desperately, trying hard to keep her family together to give her son something she’d never had-a daddy and a stay-at-home mom. She’d overlooked a lot for that to happen, only to watch Ronnie walk out on her and Pip in the end anyway.

At seven P.M., the traffic to Lovett was sparse to nonexistent, and as she drove her headlights flared on asphalt and sagebrush. She turned off the radio, fiddled around with her iPod, and sang along with Rascal Flatts. The posted speed limit was seventy, which really meant seventy-five. Everyone knew that, and she accelerated to a reasonable seventy-six.

For a year after her divorce, she might have gone a bit… wild. She might have been impulsive and emotional.