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RACHEL
“She did what?” I could not believe what my adult son from another mother was saying by way of my cell phone.
Christy’s eventual reply to my urgent text had been:
Christy: Misty is fine and also an adult.”
Sounded snarky AF to me.
So today I’d called Jere to pick his brain about Misty again, in hopes of easing her mother’s mind, and got the shock of my life. “She broke up with you?” I asked more softly.
“Taking a break, is how she put it,” Jeremy said. His voice was an octave lower than usual. Poor kid. “They tell you at the academy that relationships with cops are hard, but I never thought?—”
“That isn’t it,” I said.
“What do you mean? What do you… do you know something? Are you like… getting something?”
“No, I’m not getting something.”
Other than a pair of drowned nieces and a dead mermaid.
Shut up, Inner Bitch.
“Maybe she met somebody.” His voice sounded dead. “It’s fine. She’s young.”
“You’re the same age.”
“I’m a lot.”
“She’s a lot.” I wanted to wrap him up and hug him and smack my niece upside the head. “Something’s up with her, Jeremy. I don’t think this is about you.”
“When someone dumps you, it’s about you, Aunt Rache.”
I was worried and I didn’t believe in beating around the bush. “Don’t make this a reason to drink. If anything, it’s a reason not to.”
“I’m not drinking.” I knew there was more, so I stayed quiet and waited for it. Phone calls were so much easier than in-person discussions. I was way more not-fucking-psychic without visual input flooding my brain. “I’m thinking about drinking,” he said at length. And then, after another long pause, “I went to a meeting after work last night. I’m going again tonight.”
“Do you want to come home? Stay in your old room for a couple of weeks? You could commute to work with your uncle. Myrtle would be over the moon.”
“I might take you up on that. But you’re going out to Saratoga Springs, right?”
“Yeah, I had Mason book us a room for the weekend. I was going to ask Amy to stay with Myrtle and work out of my office, but she had a lot going on.” It was a lie. My overworked and overpaid right hand woman would’ve been happy as hell to bulldog-sit at my place for the weekend. I felt Jeremy doubting how real my need was. I’d also felt the little spark of life in his heart when I’d said the word “home.”
“You’d be doing me a huge favor, you know,” I went on. “Myrtle would be so much more comfortable with you here. Amy overnight is not normal, and you know how easily upset she is. She’ll have a tough enough time with us being gone.”
I had him. I knew it even before the sigh left his lungs. “Okay. When are you leaving?”
“Given the latest development, I want to head out there early tomorrow morning.”
“Because she dumped me,” he said.
“She called it a break, not a breakup. And, by the way, I haven’t told either of the girls our weekend plans. Christy would rat us out to Misty if she knew. Sandra’s keeping it to herself too, or at least, that’s the plan.”
“Your sister is not the best at keeping secrets, unlike…” He trailed off and my antennae quivered.
“Unlike her daughter. Unlike Misty. Was that what you almost said?”
“Um… yeah. But this has to stay between the two of us, Rache, cause I don’t know what it means. But… she’s apparently working at someplace called The Sapphire Club. She left a paystub in my car last time we hung out.”
