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Tony nodded at her and kept going toward the street.
“If…if you meant it,” she said to his back.
He stopped and turned slowly.
“I’d better meet you somewhere. After I say goodbye to Dad.” She gestured toward the house.
“What sounds good?” he asked. Cautious, she thought.
“Pretty much anything.”
“That’s no help.”
“Mexican?”
He nodded. “Okay. You know Tia’s?”
“On Birch? Sure.”
“I’ll see you there.”
She kept going, wondering if she was crazy to go out for a meal with him. What would they find to talk about besides the investigation? Or did he intend to delve more into her memories?
A quick call and she could cancel—but she didn’t want to.
Fifteen minutes later, she parked in a nearly deserted lot beside a stucco building painted an eye-catching sunset orange. Tia’s wasn’t situated close to either college, or downtown with the high-end restaurants, boutiques and tasting rooms. Locals ate here, she’d discovered. One of Beth’s co-workers had recommended it.
Entering, she paused to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior. The cool air felt wonderful, since the air conditioning in her car hadn’t really kicked in with the drive being so short. She saw Tony leaning against the front counter, talking with a dark-skinned woman whose hair was liberally streaked with silver. He was teasing her, and she swatted him playfully.
Beth joined them. “Hola. Siento haberle hecho esperar.”
His surprised expression gave her great pleasure. “You speak Spanish.”
“I’m not entirely fluent, but I get by. I use it a lot on my job.”
“That makes sense. Beth Marshall, meet my aunt Paloma.”
“You’re Tia?”
The woman grinned. “Sí. Tony—” she poked him with an elbow “—wouldn’t dare take a pretty girl anywhere else to eat.” She studied Beth. “I’ve seen you. You come here often.” Her nod held satisfaction. “Muy bien.”
Beth smiled. “I love your food.”
“Gracias. Now sit, sit. I’ll bring you a menu.”
Tony obviously didn’t need one.
Once they were alone in a booth, Beth said, “I can’t believe she’s your aunt.”
“I stumble over family everywhere around here.” He sounded rueful. “One of my brothers-in-law is my car mechanic. One of my sisters is a nurse in the ER. An uncle has an auto body shop. A cousin owns a golf shop. I can get you a good deal on flooring if you want to replace that carpet, since another brother-in-law owns Best Flooring.”
“Oh, my. I don’t know whether I should commiserate or envy you.”
“Some of both,” he said wryly. “Aunt Paloma is actually one of my favorite relatives.”
“Because she feeds you.”
He laughed. “Maybe. Although Mamá feeds me, too, when I give her the chance.”
“Wasn’t it…sort of lonely, away from family?”
“Again…yes, and no. While you were at Western, didn’t you feel as if you’d been freed?”
She wanted to lie and say of course not. But this was a rare chance to talk to someone also constrained by family. “I did,” she admitted. “It’s not like I was exhilarated. More…”
His expressive eyebrows rose. “Relieved?”
She nodded. “It always seems strange to me that most people my age aren’t close at all to their families. Maybe one reason I went into the work I do is to help make it possible for families to keep their elderly near instead of dumping them in nursing homes.” Okay, that sounded awful. “Don’t get me wrong—that’s the best decision in lots of cases. Sometimes, they need a level of care they can’t get any other way. Some elderly have insurance that covers a nursing home or memory-care facility, but not home care. And I don’t know about you, but if I end up senile in my eighties, I wouldn’t want my kids to devote their lives to taking care of me. I had a great-aunt who spent something like twenty years caring for her invalid mother, and got a break when she married and had kids before—guess what?—she spent the next thirty years or so nursing her husband. That’s too much.”
