Nonclooks down at the crumbs on his plate and shrugs. “She was asking after your mother.”
I frown. “When?”
He still doesn’t look up at me. “When I called her this morning to tell her about the surgery.”
I try, but I don’t do a great job of hiding my surprise. “Youcalledher?”
When he meets my gaze, his look is hawkish. “I’m sixty-six. I have high cholesterol. You think there’s no risk in going under for surgery at my age?”
His question hits me in the gut. “I-I hadn’t thought about it.”
He grunts. “That’s the privilege of youth. Before you have surgery at sixty-six, if you don’t settle your affairs, you at least say things that need to be said.”
“And you had things to say to Lorraine?”
His white brows leap with fervor. “I’ll always have things to say to Lorraine,” he practically shouts.
I smile wide. “I should’ve known that,” I mutter.
Noncgrunts again. “Well, she had things to say too, and one of them was that she’d like to visit Gina.”
I nod, still smiling. “I’m sure Mom would like that too.” I stare at him until he scowls.
“What?” he barks.
“You gonna marry her a third time?”
“No.” The word is fast. Too fast. He waves his uninjured hand as though I’m an annoying fly. “What are you doing here so early? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
I laugh, and I can tell he doesn’t like it one bit. I stand up and collect our plates. “I have grading to do. I was gonna borrow your back porch swing to do it.
He bats a hand toward the back door. “Well, get to it then. The last thing I need is you grinnin’ at me like some simpleton.”
I clean up the kitchen and give my uncle some peace. His porch swing is the one thing of his I envy. One day, I need to add on to the tiny porch of my tiny house so I can fit one of my own. His swing is wrought iron and as heavy-duty as a chariot. When I sit back and set it swinging, the creaking of the chains makes a welcome music to accompany my grading. I plough through one set of exams and get up only to fill a glass with iced tea before settling in to grade the next.
The afternoon slips by. The four o’clock ballroom class is a piece of cake, and it energizes me for the last push of grading back onNonc’sporch swing. And before I realize the time, Iris Adams’s black Range Rover is crunching through gravel in the back drive. I look up from the stack of exams in my lap, but I can make out nothing behind the tinted windows.
Does she really need tinted windows? Sure, people recognized her at the hospital last night, but they didn’t mob her.
And then I remember the junkie. Okay, he did kind of mob her.
Still, tinted windows spellpretentious.
The driver’s side door opens, and her PA Ramon steps out. The guy goes to the back seat door, and he opens it like a chauffeur.Like a frickin’ chauffeur.I watch Iris Adams place her hand in his and slip out of the vehicle.
Pretentious? Make thatinsufferable.
Two months. I can get through two months,I tell myself, straightening my papers and getting to my feet.
Instead of heading my way, Iris turns and leans back into the SUV. She comes out with a giant basket and hooks it on her arm. Even from here, I hear Ramon offer to take it. She shakes her head and sets off across the drive.
But the basket’s half as big as she is, and as she hoists it up the steps, I drop my exams and move in to help.
“Here, let me get that.”
“No, thank you,” she says, tugging back when my hand meets the wicker handle. “I’ve got it.”
I step back, but not before getting a sense of the basket’s weight, which has got to be forty pounds. The thing is bursting with parcels wrapped in blue gingham and twine.
