Gone South by Meg Moseley Read Free Book Online

moving boxes.”
    “It sounds like a real adventure. Why Alabama?”
    “A family connection.”
    Matt frowned. Maybe he thought she’d gone crazy.
    “My mother remarried and moved to Florida,” she said. “Now I’ll be within a long day’s drive of her new place.”
    Matt nodded. “That gets important as parents get older. It’s good to stay plugged in tight with your family.”
    Easy for him to say. He had family coming out his ears. But Tish only smiled and nodded.
    “I hope you’ll love it down there,” he said. “Best of luck to you.”
    “Thanks, Matt. Well, give the rest of the family my love. Bye, Alex.”
    The little boy gave her a shy smile, but he didn’t know who she was. He’d never known his Uncle Stephen, either.
    Tish continued toward the back of the store, finding it difficult to think about moving boxes.
    Stephen had moved on, leaving her behind. He was eternally young and carefree in her memory while she marched on toward middle age in her comfy Naturalizers. Wearing small, sensible earrings, with her hair pulled back tight. Driving a Volvo. She was even buying a house. An old house, frozen in time.
    Maybe she should have taken her mother’s suggestion and bought a brand-new condo in Tampa. Surrounded by senior citizens, she might have felt like a spring chicken in comparison. Or she might have sped up the process of turning into an old hen.

December and much of January had blurred into a flurry of paperwork, e-mails, phone calls, and money transactions. The closing was just two days away in Muldro. Tomorrow morning, she’d begin her drive south, but she had one thing left to do before she could leave her life in Michigan behind.
    Aware that she reeked of cleaning supplies, Tish leaned against her grocery cart like an old lady with a walker. She’d promised her aching muscles a long bubble bath, but this was her last chance to buy flowers. She was cutting it close too. The gates would be locked at dark.
    Picking up her pace, she made her way to the floral department. She passed by the sedate arrangements in the cooler and stopped beside the random, cellophane-wrapped bunches of flowers in big plastic tubs. Twelve stems per bunch. She just couldn’t decide which mixture she liked best. Each one included something she loved. A bright yellow spider mum, the softness of green eucalyptus, the vivid blue of a bachelor’s-button … How could she decide?
    Buy ’em all. You know you want to .
    Such extravagance! Exactly what Stephen would have wanted.
    Tish counted. Six bunches in one tub. Six in the other. At nearly ten dollars each? When she needed to be smart with her money?
    But she had a wad of cash in her purse for the trip. More than she needed.
    She wouldn’t be able to put more than a few of them in water, though, and what could she do with the rest? They’d wilt in no time without water.
    They would wilt anyway.
    She loaded the contents of both plastic tubs into her cart, balanced the flowers upright, then headed for the shortest checkout line. Through the window, she could see the sun breaching the horizon. Once the sun went down, it would be too late.
    The man ahead of her didn’t seem to understand how to swipe a debit card. Hurry up , she mouthed soundlessly.
    Stephen had often picked up flowers at this very store. She would forever wonder what kind he’d chosen, that last time.
    Finally, the slowpoke finished his business and moved on. She handed one cellophane sleeve of flowers to the teenager at the register. “I have twelve of these,” she told him.
    “Got it.”
    Fast, efficient, and impersonal, he scanned the UPC code times twelve, handed the single bunch of flowers back, and gave her the total—all without really looking at her. She handed over the cash and took her change and receipt, all without really looking at him.
    “That’s a lot of flowers,” he said, as if he’d finally noticed. “Big party?”
    Wanting to cry, she met his eyes. He wasn’t as young