“Are you just getting home from work?” Mom asked as I kissed her on the cheek. I nodded and loosened my tie. “That’s ridiculous.” She wrapped one of her deep brown hands around my chin and tipped my head to the side as if she were inspecting me for damage. “Look at this luggage under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep?”
"Beverly, leave that boy alone." Dad closed his laptop, removed his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting.
"They are working him too hard. Look at his face." She still gripped my chin and forced me to look at my dad.
“Please. My easiest day as a public defender was worse than my hardest day at HC, and I had lives depending on me. He’ll be fine.” Then he narrowed his dark eyes at me and muttered, “He’d be better if he stopped staying out late after work and took his butt home at a decent hour.”
It was time for me to make my exit.
“Where was all this sympathy when I worked all those late hours?” he asked.
"You are not my child, and if memory serves me correctly, and it always does, I took care of you plenty…" She released me and eyed my father suggestively.
“You still do,” he replied in a voice too deep for my comfort.
It was really time for me to make my exit.
I cleared my throat to remind them I was still in the room. Mom laughed and patted my face.
"Go in the kitchen and fix yourself a plate. Kimmy is in there, so you better hurry if you want some corn."
I swung the kitchen door open to find my sister scooping the last of the corn out of a large bowl and dividing it between two plates. She was a younger version of my mom with chestnut colored skin and long dark tightly coiled hair which she’d pulled up in a bun. She wore a sleeveless blouse and yellow pencil skirt so I guessed she came here straight from work too.
“Hey, Stringbean.” I took the bowl from her and managed to salvage some of the corn. The salty, buttery smell made my stomach growl again. “You opening a soup kitchen?”
"No," she said and tried to snatch the bowl back before I held it out of her reach. "Adam's working late, and I'm making him a plate."
Adam was Kimberly's fiancé. They'd only been together for a few months, but he was a good guy and made her happy.
“I thought he was moving to Barbados.” I clutched the bowl while I reached for a plate.
"He is, but he had some meetings in New York, and Vittoria can't fly anymore. So, we're both in the same place at the same time for a few days." Her face spread in a wistful grin and she started scooping baked mac and cheese onto the plates.
My sister was the executive assistant to the head of the real estate and hospitality division of Wolfe Industries, a Fortune 50 company. Usually, she was jet-setting around the world, but her boss was in the latter part of her pregnancy and couldn't fly, so she was home more often. Adam was an architect and was building a luxury resort in Barbados for Wolfe. He flew back and forth a lot and was preparing to move there for the foreseeable future. Long-distance relationships were supposed to be hard, but these two seemed to make it work. I wasn't a fan of long relationships, much less long-distance ones.
My sister and I managed to divide the leftover meatloaf and cornbread without coming to blows, though she took all four corner pieces. We were wrapping our plates in foil when I remembered last night's encounter.
“Hey, do you have a tenant?”
She froze. “Yeah,” she answered in a slow, cautious tone. “Why?” She turned to face me, eyeing me with suspicion.
“How long has she lived there?”
“She moved in about eight months ago. Again, why?”
"She's lived there for eight months, and I've never seen her?"
“No.” She shook her head and went back to covering her plates.
"No, what?" I asked, knowing exactly what she meant and tried to stifle a grin.
"Stay away from her. She's sweet. She minds her own business, and she always pays her rent on time."
“Excuse me? Your sweet tenant who minds her own business tried to attack me with a baseball bat last night.”
She whipped around to face me.
“What? That doesn’t sound like—” She almost said her name, then stopped herself. “Why did she try to attack you with a bat?”
