Where Light Lingers

A STORY OF SELF DISCOVERY

“Heartache means your heart’s still working. That you still have love to give. And one day—maybe sooner than you think—someone’s going to need that love.” — Blossom

Selwyn Aldridge has felt lost lately because she has been a caregiver for her parents for the past six years. She accepted her responsibility but lost herself somewhere along the way. She is a College professor who loves investing in her students and watching them light up when they grasp a concept or decide learning is worthwhile. She is burning out teaching at a well-known University. Her students are more interested in scrolling through their phones than engaging with and participating in her lectures. One student stands out, and Selwyn befriends her. Little does Selwyn know how that one friendship will change the course of her life.

Several significant events occur, allowing Selwyn to navigate situations that span both the past and the present. She decides to restore her mother’s once magnificent garden. While shopping for plants, she meets an extraordinary woman named Blossom, who always offers help in every situation and provides excellent advice to everyone. With Blossom's encouragement, will Selwyn learn to open her heart as well as her home to those in need? Will she accept her calling as a caregiver or reject it? Will Selwyn finally have the family she always dreamed of but never thought she would have? What is the definition of family?"~Lisa Hudson 

Chapter 1
I’ve never felt so alone in a room full of people. And that’s saying something, coming from someone used to lecturing five days a week to a hundred distracted students. But no one prepares you for this kind of silence—the kind that follows a eulogy, thick with memory and regret.
Half the town has turned out for my mother’s memorial service. Alongside Flossie’s many friends, I spot her attorney, financial planner, and hair stylist. In the far corner of the room, my father’s old golf partners and fishing buddies huddle together as though waiting out a storm.
Flossie’s friends from garden club, bridge club, and her church circle were always gracious about visiting during her illness. They brought food and flowers, stayed for short visits, and cast pitiful glances my way when Flossie repeated the same questions over and over again. Those visits slowed in recent months, as her mind began its final, rapid unraveling. Now they line up to pay their respects in the fellowship hall, engulfing me in warm hugs, their voices soft with nostalgia.
Your mama didn’t just light up this block. She lit up the entire town.
There’ll never be another Flossie.
She had a way of making everybody feel like family.
That garden of hers? It was a masterpiece.
Oh, we’re going to miss her something fierce.
My gaze lands on a young woman I don’t recognize. She has the purest face, a mop of white-blonde curls, and eyes so crystal clear they seem to glow. Our eyes meet, and a flicker passes between us, sending a jolt through me. There’s something eerily familiar about her. Maybe she’s one of my students? I glance away for just a second. When I look back, she’s gone. An odd hollowness settles in my chest, like I’ve missed something important without knowing what it was. Not fear exactly—but a strange, wistful ache. A thread left dangling. A question unanswered.
I shrug it off. I’m overly emotional today.
My friends are here—Mary Beth, Lisa, Georgia. Not Janey. I saw her earlier in the church. But she’s an obstetrician. She likely rushed off to deliver some lucky young woman’s baby.
The five of us traveled in a pack from kindergarten through high school graduation—thick as honeysuckle on a porch railing. There were birthday parties with handmade cakes and scavenger hunts. Shopping trips on the Square during our awkward middle school years, trying on too much makeup and too-tight jeans. Sneaking into fraternity parties at Ole Miss when we were seniors in high school, bold with fake IDs and borrowed confidence.
We remained close through college, standing up in each other’s weddings in pastel gowns and cemented updos. But then they started having babies, and I couldn’t conceive. Being around them became intolerable, their talk of potty training and backyard barbecues painful reminders of my failures. After my divorce, I pulled away entirely. It wasn’t just the babies or the husbands or the joyful chaos of their lives—it was the ache of what I’d lost, and what I never really had to begin with.
The three of them trade their fondest Flossie stories now. Everyone has always called my mother Flossie—even when we were kids.
“Mrs. Aldridge was my mother-in-law,” she used to say when someone made the dreaded mistake of using her married name. “Heaven knows I don’t want to be confused with that battle-ax—God rest her soul.”
We laugh, remembering the night she piled us into her station wagon, in our pajamas, for a midnight run to the Krispy Kreme in Memphis. How she taught us to apply eyeliner with a gentle hand. How she let us sip champagne at her New Year’s Eve parties—provided we handed over our car keys. How she once drove us to Nashville to see the Indigo Girls on a whim, blasting Fleetwood Mac the whole way. How she made everyone feel like her favorite—and somehow, we all believed we were.
I walk my friends to the side exit. Each one kisses the air beside my cheek in parting, but none suggest we get together soon. When I turn back around, the room has emptied. No one’s in sight as I cross through the fellowship hall toward the sanctuary, but I can’t shake the uneasy feeling that I’m not alone. That someone is watching me.
Retrieving Mom’s urn from the church altar, I hurry out to my dusty blue 1984 Land Cruiser. Bluebell was already vintage when Dad gave her to me for my sixteenth birthday. I’ve repainted the exterior, rebuilt the engine, and reworked the white leather upholstery more times than I can count, but I still can’t bring myself to part with her.
I buckle Mom into the passenger side. I’d chosen a blue and white delft ginger jar for her remains—classic and elegant, more my taste than hers. But when it turned out to be unavailable, the funeral home folks put her ashes in a squatty purple jug that looks like someone’s first attempt at pottery class. When the director saw my face, he offered to transfer her to something more appropriate. But I declined. I didn’t want to unsettle her. And honestly? The more I look at it, the more I think Flossie would’ve loved the color.
Bluebell’s AC gave out about a decade ago and never came back to life. This weekend marks the beginning of summer, but today’s weather is still spring-like, low humidity with temperatures in the seventies. I roll down the windows and let the jasmine-sweet air pour in as we make the short drive home—me and Flossie, one last ride together.
Rosa has changed out of her funeral dress and is in the kitchen waiting for us when we arrive. She engulfs me in a hug so tight the urn digs into my ribcage. She’s a strong woman for someone so tiny.
“Bless your heart,” she murmurs. “First your daddy, and now your mama. Both so young. Gone before their time. And you—”
“Am now an orphan,” I say into her chest, the words muffled and bitter.
She pulls back to look at me, her eyes wet. “I just wish you had a sibling.”
“Well, I don’t,” I snap. “Obviously.”
“Let me see this.” She takes the purple contraption from me and holds it up to the light, squinting at it like it might confess something. “Your mama is not happy in here.”
My heart sinks. I gave Flossie everything I had these past three years. And now . . . I don’t know how to stop caring, even when there’s nothing left I can do.