Chapter 35

An hour later and they were in a cab taking them to the location of Dusty's mysterious gift to her mother. In the backseat Kayla Black shifted uncomfortably. She didn't like surprises, not anymore. They were both wrapped up in thick coats and woolen hats to keep out the cold. A fresh spattering of snow had made the ground sparkle with a pearlescent luster.

"Where are we going?" Kayla whispered.

"You'll see."

"You keep saying that."

"It's because you will."

The cab eventually stopped outside the estate in which the Black family used to live. As Kayla stepped out of the car and recognized her surroundings, she felt the blood in her veins turn to ice. This was not somewhere she wanted to be. This was a place of forgotten memories, the remnants of a life that was no longer hers.

"Dusty, why are we here?" she demanded, her voice pitched with emotion.

"You'll see."

"Stop saying that."

"Mom, can you just trust me, please?" Dusty implored, her eyes wide and asking. Kayla wanted to leave and return to the sanctuary of her trailer. She didn't want to see the giant houses with their long driveways and immaculate fences. She didn't want to be reminded of all that she had lost. It was too painful to even be on the periphery of the estate. She'd accepted that she would forever be an outsider looking in on the lives of those more well off; she didn't need a literal walk down memory lane to cement that anymore for her.

"I don't want to be here," Kayla said, growing tearful.

"I know." Dusty reached out and held her mother's hand and noticed she was shaking slightly. "And I'm not trying to upset you, believe me. You just need to trust me."

"Okay." Kayla nodded. She trusted her daughter implicitly. Even though her instincts were screaming at her to leave this place, she trusted Dusty enough to push through them and carry on. Together in the snow they walked through what had once been their neighborhood. At a few points along the way Kayla would point out the house of someone she had once known. "That was where the Jeffersons lived," Kayla noted by a large white house.

"She's a grandmother now." As they walked, Dusty noticed the sadness that weighed down her mother's steps. This had once been a place where she felt accepted and secure. Now she was an outsider, cast out from all that she had once known. They rounded a corner, and there, in the middle of the street stood the house that had once been theirs. Time had not dulled its impressive stature. It was still the nicest house on the street, boasting a white picket fence and a long, curving driveway.

qWhen Kayla saw the house, she stopped and held her breath. It was the first time she had seen it since she'd been forced to leave. Her eyes grew moist at the thought of someone else living there, another mother cooking in her kitchen, planting in her garden. It was like someone else was living her life. "It's still the best house on the block," Kayla declared, choking back tears.

"I know." Dusty smiled, still holding her mother's hand tightly in support. "You remember when Dad put that hoop up for Dust?" Dusty pointed to a basketball hoop, which was still hanging above the double garage. "Dust insisted he was going to be a pro basketball player after that." Kayla managed to smile at the memory.

"It's hard seeing it," she admitted. "I haven't seen the house since we left."

"I have," Dusty told her, noticing the flicker of surprise in Kayla's eyes. "I saw the house very recently, actually."

"You did?" Kayla asked, looking shocked.

"Yesterday, to be precise."

"What? Why?" Kayla asked the question as her eyes spotted the sold sign that had been placed on the front lawn. Dusty fished around in her coat pocket and produced a shiny silver key attached to a key ring shaped like a four-leaf clover. Gently, she passed the key to her mother, who accepted it and looked at it like some strange foreign object, not understanding what was happening.

"I saw the house yesterday because I bought it." Dusty explained. Kayla was speechless. She looked first at the key in her gloved palm and then at the house where she had once lived, unable to connect the two. "I noticed a few weeks ago that it was for sale, so I put an offer in, which was accepted, then put a down payment on it, arranged a mortgage and came down to finalize the paperwork," Dusty explained, speaking quickly. Still Kayla said nothing. "Mom, this is my gift to you. This is the reason I came back to West. I bought the house for you because I think it's time you came home."

Dusty squeezed her mother's hand to try to prompt a response. Slowly, Kayla turned to look at her with tears streaming down her face. She shook as she stood rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak. "This is where you belong, Mom. This is our home," Dusty said, tears beginning to wet her own cheeks.

"Oh, Dusty," Kayla said, her voice wavering. "I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, Mom. It's my turn to look after you."

"Thank you!" Kayla threw her arms around her daughter and held her tightly to her. She wept deeply as she held her, the emotion of the moment flooding out of her. In her arms, Dusty cried too. As they stood on the sidewalk outside their old home that was now theirs once more, Dusty knew it was one of the happiest moments of her life. To be able to come home again, it was all she'd ever wanted.

"Do you want to go inside?" Dusty asked tentatively as they parted.

"Are we allowed?" Kayla said hesitantly, still in disbelief about it all.

"Mom, it's your house again. The deed to the property is in your name and yours alone. Tomorrow we're going shopping, and you're going to pick out all new furniture."

"How can you afford all this?"

"I got a raise. Seriously, the mortgage on this and my apartment in the city are easily covered by my new wage."

"But this..." Kayla gestured towards the house.

"My raise was fifty thousand dollars," Dusty explained. "I could have bought some swanky apartment in the city, but that's not what I want. I want our home back. I want our life back."

Kayla wiped at her eyes and looked down at the silver key she was holding. "The clover is supposed to bring good luck," Dusty explained, referring to the keychain it was hung upon.

"You know, we can never get our old life back," Kayla said.

"I know that, Mom. Dad's gone, and as brutally awful as that is, somehow we survived. We lost everything we had, yet look where we are. Both Dust and I made it to college, and it's all because of you. You were forced to sacrifice your life for ours. And now I want to make it up to you. I want to give you back the home you should never have had to leave."

Kayla looked up the curving driveway towards the home she had been torn from. She remembered the Christmases there, the day she had brought Dusty back from the hospital when she was a tiny baby in arms. The Black family had grown up in that house. It was more than bricks and mortar to them, it was memories, it was home. "Won't you be happy there? Will it be too hard being reminded of Dad?" Dusty asked nervously, fearing she'd done the wrong thing in purchasing their old home.

"Oh, Dusty, I'll be so unbelievably happy here," Kayla declared, embracing her daughter once more. "You're so much like your father." She sobbed. "If he were still alive, he'd have worked every hour God sent for this moment. You brought us back to where we belong, sweetheart, thank you."