When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

Missy’s words drifted through her head as she closed her eyes. Tomorrow will be better. She hoped so. Christy-Lynn Parker. Christy-Lynn Parker. The name seemed to throb like a drumbeat in her head as she strolled Sweetwater’s downtown streets, a reminder that yesterday she had stepped out of one life and into another. It was a strange feeling to suddenly find yourself unmoored from your own life, to open your eyes in the morning and not know where you are, where you’re going, or even what happens next. But it was liberating too, in a way, the delicious anonymity of simply blending into the scenery of a small town street. It had been years since she’d been able to blend into the scenery back in Clear Harbor. She was heading for the corner deli, humorously named the Fickle Pickle, when her fingers began to cramp. She paused, shifting her shopping bags from one hand to the other. Hippie clothes, Stephen would have called her recent purchases. And maybe they were. They were certainly nothing like the sleek designer labels he preferred she wear, or even the cheap working girl separates she had worn in her early days at Lloyd and Griffin. In fact, now that she thought about it, she was surprised he’d bothered to give her a second look back then. She’d been working as an editor’s assistant, still brown-bagging it and driving an old Ford Tempo with wind-down