Chapter 27.1

With his gaze on the road in front of him, he shrugged. “It’s just that few people actually move here. Most people move away.”

“If that were true, this would be a ghost town by now.”

“Okay, a slight exaggeration. But why pick Tribute? You could live anywhere.”

“The fact that I can live anywhere I want is why I’m here. I guess I’ve loved it here since those terrible, hot nights in the desert, when I begged

Brenda to talk about something, anything. Brenda talked about Tribute and how much she loved it. I mentally adopted the town. I’ve never lived in one spot longer than a few months, always being shuffled from one relative to

another while my mother took off for parts unknown.” “What about your father?”

She shrugged. “Never met the man. I’m not sure my mother knows who he is. I never thought to myself, ‘I wish I had a dad, or a mom who stayed

put.’ It wasn’t parents I always wanted, it was a home. A hometown. For more than a year I’ve held Tribute in my mind, and now, here I am.”

“Wow.