Bella bark-whined, then lay down at my feet.
“See, it’s not even about the food,” Cami said. “She just wants the love.”
I stared at the beautiful woman across the table from me, the hot blonde who was so much my type that my team had been worried she might be an enemy agent sent to entrap me. Yeah, I wanted the love, too, although there were other names for it.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I asked as Cami polished off her bacon.
“Probably. Maybe.” She shrugged.
I grinned. “Come on, now, it seems only fair, since you’ve seen me in my birthday suit.”
Her cheeks turned pink again, making her gorgeous face glow, and, ass that I was, I didn’t feel bad about it. “It’s about the photos on your living room wall,” I said.
She was chewing and listening, but didn’t immediately respond. Then again, I hadn’t really asked a question. I wasn’t a great interrogator, as that task typically fell to other members of my team, but I usually wasn’t this shitty at it.
“I was just wondering what made you choose those particular ones to hang,” I glanced at them. “For some reason, I feel like they tell a story.”
“Oh.” She furrowed her brow as she, too, looked at them. “Maybe they do. I asked my mom for three or four family photos to enlarge and print in black and white for my wall. She chose those and sent them to me.”
“Is it your mom’s story, then?” I’d noticed that her momlooked ill in the first one, worse in the second, better in the third, and healthy again in the final one. Her dad’s face and expressions had followed a similar path, while his hair had thinned and grayed.
“Well, the first one was taken when I was nine, so my sister Lizzie was thirteen.” She sipped her coffee, then chewed her lower lip, deep in thought. “It was taken on our summer vacation, two months before my mom was diagnosed with her first brain tumor.”
“Cami, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It was tough. We all handled it in different ways. By the time the second photo was taken, I was twelve. It was Lizzie’s sixteenth birthday. I’d spent the morning calling all her friends, including ones Mom and Dad didn’t know she had, to find her and convince her to come home. She was smoking and snorting all sorts of crap by then, and disappearing for days at a time.”
My stomach churned. I regretted starting this conversation, making Cami relive such a painful past.
“The third one, with just Mom, Dad, and me, was taken at my high school graduation.” She smiled and I knew that one was a happier memory. “You might have gathered that from my cap and gown ensemble.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Eh, I don’t know. I throw on a cap and gown every now and then when I’m feeling saucy.” I leaned forward and whispered. “The trick to pulling it off is to go commando underneath.”
“Stop it!” She laughed as she turned bright red. “You’re never going to let me live down this morning, are you?”
There was that laugh again. Pulling it out of her felt good. “And the final picture, with all of you together again?”
“Another graduation. It was at the end of Lizzie’s laststint in rehab. That was four years ago. She’s been clean and sober ever since.”
“That’s great. I’m happy for her. And for you.”
Cami stared at the photo. “I had a feeling that time would finally be the one that took. It was the first timeshemade the decision to go. It was her suggestion, and she asked me to help her find a facility out west, somewhere farther from home so she could start fresh.”
“Is she back in Maryland now?”
“No. She stayed in Arizona. She went back to school, got her degree, and now she’s an addiction counselor.” She frowned, but covered it quickly. “I miss having her close by, but I’m proud of her and happy she’s found her path.” She narrowed her eyes for a minute as she looked at the collection again. “It’s also the story of Mom’s illness and recovery.”
“And your dad’s journey with her.” As I said it, I knew what had been bothering me about the pictures. “But you look the same in every shot. Growing up, of course, but the same pose, the same smile.” I turned my attention to her. “Where’s your story in those pictures?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Thatismy story. My job was to hold steady, to keep it together no matter what was going on around me.”
Jesus, who gave that job to a nine-year-old? Or a teenager or even the twenty-something she would have been after her sister’s final stint in rehab?
“I’m sorry,” I said, because it was the only thing Icouldsay.
“About what?” She shook her head. “They’re all fine now. Everyone’s fine.”
“I wasn’t sorry for them,” I said.
