The Wild Road Home: A Novel by Melissa Payne

Author:Melissa Payne [Payne, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2024-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

The glass doors slid open to a confined area with another set of doors that didn’t open. To her left was a small table with a sign-in sheet for after-hours visitors. It was just nine thirty. Brandi bit at her nail. Didn’t old people go to bed super early? She wrote a name, Brandi Anders, and filled in Daisy Anders under the slot for who she was visiting. She hesitated, wrote granddaughter under relation to resident. Then she rang the little doorbell and waited.

It took another ring and more waiting before a disheveled woman in fluorescent-pink scrubs opened the doors. She glanced at the sign-in sheet, gave Brandi a quick look before tearing off a sticker that read VISITOR and handing it to her. “Have you visited before?”

Brandi pushed the sticker against her sweatshirt. “No.”

“Room 107. Down that hallway. Daisy’s a night owl, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.” The woman in scrubs hurried away, her black Crocs quiet on the floor.

“That was easy,” Brandi murmured to the empty lobby. The hallway lights were dimmed, and Brandi tiptoed. It felt like the middle of the night. Most of the doors were closed, some cracked, television lights flashing blue and white inside. Each door had a homemade paper sign with the person’s name. Brandi smiled: DON on the back of a Colorado Rockies jersey, JUDY on a teapot. With its musty wallpaper and dark hallways, the place was dreary, there was no denying it. The detention center had been like that. Old-ass showers with mold in the corners and hair in the drain. Bland colors everywhere except for the purple shirts her unit wore. But, like here, there’d be small bright spots. Construction-paper gardens with electric-yellow suns, motivational sayings about failure and success on the bathroom stalls. All from someone who cared enough about the girls to try and warm the place up with a few cheesy slogans and fake flowers. Most of the girls thought it was stupid. But it wasn’t a small thing to Brandi. She loved the idea that even in a place where the staff was paid nothing and the girls drowned in their own trauma, there was someone who loved their job. Someone who decided that their mission in life was to make depressing places better.

Brandi thought that was pretty cool.

She got to room 107 and touched the picture taped to the closed door. DAISY was written in the black center of a flower with yellow petals. Pretty. She breathed in and knocked.

Nothing. Her fingers drew nervous circles into her hip. Knocked again. Mack’s wedding ring felt heavy against the bones of her chest. Coming here was another one of her “rash” decisions. Daisy was a total stranger. Mack was a total stranger. What was she thinking?

The door opened to a room flooded with light, and standing in the doorway was the prettiest old lady Brandi had ever seen. She wore a white robe over pink pajama pants and fuzzy slippers, and her hair was pulled into a girlish ponytail.

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