The Memory Keeper: A Heartwarming, Feel-Good Romance(10)

Thanks Gran. I’ll call you whenever we stop next, okay?

Gran came back: All right, my sweet girl. I’ll count the minutes until I see you.

Just texting with Gran filled Hannah with a kind of warmth she hadn’t felt in years. Gran could make everything seem okay.

The snow fluttered down around them. Visibility was extremely low, and the only distinction between the road and the ground was the string of brake lights on the barely moving cars in front of them stretching as far as Hannah could see. Liam had both hands tightly on the wheel at ten and two, the windshield wipers going like crazy but only succeeding in smearing two large semicircles of precipitation across the windshield.

“Does anyone know a five-letter word for a kitchen item that starts with a P?” Georgia said, still wearing her headphones, her voice too loud for the confined space. She leaned forward and tapped the row of squares in the puzzle book she was working on.

“Plate,” Liam said, his eyes still on the road.

Georgia huffed. “How did I not get that?”

They all fell quiet again, and Liam turned up the radio to fill the void—some call-in radio station. “We’re asking people to tell us their answers to this question. Are you ready?” the radio announcer said. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done? We’ll be back to hear from our callers after these messages.”

Liam checked his rearview mirror to change lanes. “Besides going on a fourteen-hour road trip with two people from the airport after spending all morning in flight? I’m not sure,” he said with a laugh, answering the radio announcer’s question.

“Oh, come on,” Hannah teased. “I knew you as a teenager. You’ve done crazier things than that, I’m nearly certain.”

He looked over at her, amused, and she caught a glimpse of the boy she’d known. “I climbed the old Franklin water tower once, when I was sixteen,” he said.

“Rebel,” Georgia teased from the backseat.

“It’s higher than it looks,” he said with a laugh, turning the radio back down so they could hear each other. “I was actually dared to paint something on it, but I chickened out,” he added.

“What were you going to paint on it?” Hannah asked.

“I have no idea. My friend ended up painting something instead. It was Billy Robertson. He went to my high school—do you remember him?”

Hannah shook her head. “Wait, was that the time someone painted ‘Party’s Here’ with an arrow pointing into town? I remember my gran was on the town board and they debated on whether or not to keep it—some people actually liked it.”

“Yes, that was it! Billy painted it. The arrow was actually pointing toward Leiper’s Fork, where I lived. My parents were going out of town that weekend, and he kept threatening to have a party at our house.”

“Did you?” Georgia asked.

“No. I went out to a bonfire instead.” He grinned at Hannah, and she instantly made the connection.

“So that’s the craziest thing you’ve done?” Georgia asked, rolling her eyes playfully. “Almost painting a water tower? Or going to the bonfire?”

“I suppose I have one more. In college, I made one of those full-court basketball shots they offer one fan at halftime, and I won a huge prize.”

“What did you win?” Hannah asked.

“Twenty thousand dollars for charity. I gave it to a local boys’ and girls’ club.”

Georgia leaned forward. “Are you a real person or some sort of storybook character?”

Liam laughed. “So what’s the craziest thing you’ve done then?” he asked.

“At eighteen, I left home to be a photographer,” Georgia told him. “I lived in the woods for three years, photographing landscapes and doing odd jobs to pay for my food. I mailed my parents letters every week to let them know I was okay, and I lived my life my way.”

“Wow,” Hannah said, nearly speechless, she and Liam looking back and forth at one another in complete surprise.

“I sold one of the photographs I’d enlarged and framed for five hundred dollars, and followed the guy who bought it to Chicago. That’s how I ended up there. We didn’t last long, but I just never left.” She shrugged as if the whole thing had been no big deal.

“I think you win for the craziest thing ever done by any of us,” Liam said. “Unless Hannah can top you… Done anything crazy?”

Hannah started to speak, but noticed Liam’s shift in mood as he looked down at the gas gauge.

“What is it?” Hannah asked.

“Looks like the rental car company didn’t fill the car up with gas. It’s nearly empty. We’re going to have to pull off to get some as soon as we can.”

Concerned, Hannah peered through the window at the three lanes of bottlenecked traffic between them and the exit lane. Was this some sort of terrible nightmare she was going to wake up from? This could not be real life…

Liam put on his blinker, but no one was moving.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Georgia said, gently smacking her crossword puzzle against her knee, one of her headphones pulled back past her ear as she quickly assessed the current situation. “I’m gonna file a complaint with the rental company once this is all finished.”