Excerpt: Touchstone

Kyle settled into the airline seat next to his mother. As he sat down, he was reminded of the note from his late grandmother in his back pocket. It said not to open it until they got home. He thought it felt warm, but knew such a thing was impossible. The very idea of it was -

"Your grandmother wasn't crazy, you know."

He rolled his brown eyes, again. How did she do that? "Yes, Momma, I know. She was, how you say, 'eccentric'."

Judy reached over to him and ruffled his shaggy hair. "Maybe she was. But just because she lived out the last of her days in a shotgun shack outside of New Orleans doesn't mean she was crazy." She smiled gently at him, and brushed his sandy locks out of his eyes. "And you can stop putting on that bad Cajun accent. I thought you didn't like the kids in school teasing you about it?"

He shrugged. "It's hard to stop myself, after hearing it for the last three days down here."

"Well, as soon as we land, you can get y'all's Michigan accent back in ya."

Kyle looked into his mother's green eyes and shook his head. "Momma, you're doing it too!"

Judy laughed, a tired but amused laugh. "So I am. It does rub off on you when it's already in the blood, doesn't it?" She leaned over and rested her head on his, kissing him on the forehead. "Oh, my young man," she whispered, "whatever are we going to do with each other?"

He glanced up at her through his hair. "Well, we can start by getting home where it's not so hot, then we can talk to Dad about that car he was looking at..."

She chuckled. "Not even off the ground here, and you're already thinking about putting that new license to use? All right then, let's get this show on the road!" As she leaned back in her seat, the lights flickered in the cabin as the plane switched over to internal power. They were finally going home. For a second, Kyle felt like Gramma was coming home with them.