Coming Home

Chapter 1

"Well you know that big spot on the hall wall?" he looked down at her, his pacing forgotten.

"The one where that old mirror had been?" she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"Yea," he smiled down at her and she could not help but smile back. "Mom is always saying that it is such an eye sore," which was true, "so I was going to paint over it."

"The wall in the hallway is tan," she reminded him, settling back into her task, the brown almost all gone.

"I know that," he chided, "I was going to paint something over the spot," he said, sounding exasperated, which was better than panicked.

"What were you going to paint?" she asked, just as the door knob turned.

"It was going to be a surprise," he said sadly as the door opened.

"What was going to be a surprise?" their mother had asked, looking down at Cheyanne scrubbing the floor and Clint had immediately started his pacing again, tears running down his face.

She shook off the memory as the staircase where she had posed for her prom pictures loomed just in beyond that stain taunting her.

Oh you went all that way just to come back home, they snickered at her.

"Stupid stairs," she muttered under her breath, turning her gaze elsewhere. The living room still housed the same old overstuffed red couch her mother bought second hand. Running her hand over the back of it she made her way to the dining room.

Pictures were strewn over the top of the ancient oak table that once held her bustling family together. Her brother's smiling face beamed at her from the picture under her fingers; Clint seemed to be every where in this house, tears burned to be spilled, but she fought them back. He was sitting in an inner tube on the ground, no where near a body of water. His dark shades covering his eyes as he lounged in his swim suit. A laugh escaped her lips when she remembered what he had answered when asked what he was doing.

"Waitin for flood," he had smiled and then gone back to basking in the sun, his blonde hair shining. Never mind that they lived in south Texas and it was more likely to snow than to rain in the middle of the hot summer, but he sat out there just about every day that summer waiting for the rain.

"Waitin for a flood," a soft voice said behind her, causing her to drop the picture back among the others.

She turned around and was greeted by the heartbreaking smile of her mother.

"Momma," she gasped, moving towards the woman's open arms.

"I missed you baby girl," her mother said against her hair as Cheyanne held on for dear life.

"I missed you too momma," she laughed at the sound of her voice. Less than twenty minutes in this house and she already felt like a teenager again.

"Let me look at ya," her mother's deep southern drawl demanded, holding her back at arm's length.

It was her mother's eyes that looked up at her, but the woman that owned the eyes looked to old to be Bess. Her mother's beautiful face had been as ravaged by time as the house she lived in, deep wrinkles cut across her features. An old woman stood in front of her where a once vivacious middle aged woman had been. Her smile was weak, her skin deathly pale, so much so that Cheyanne started to think that Aunt Bea had understated her condition. Her mother's hair was swept away from her face, framing her frail figure in a grey cloud. Tears threatened to spill as she towered over the tiny woman she had once believed to be larger than life.

Her mother took a ragged breath before looking back into her daughter's eyes, tears pooling as pride brimmed those dark brown orbs.

"My little Cheyanne, still the prettiest girl in all the land," she said, her familiar smile cutting across the wrinkles, bringing back the mother she knew as she held her daughter's face.