He nodded. “Maybe I’ll see you at the game this week? If you’re coming along to watch?”
Right. The Hellions’ first match of the season.
“I’ll be there. See you on the ice.”
I got back to the house after a long day on campus. The novelty of being by myself was lessening day by day. The house was too damn big to rattle around in all alone.
I ate dinner in the quiet and then called my mom.
“Darling! How nice to hear from you,” she enthused.
“Yeah, well, I figured I should make sure you’re still alive,” I said.
She laughed, like it was a joke.
“Actually, I was going to call, but with the time difference, it got all complicated.”
“Time difference? Aren’t you in New York?”
“John surprised me with a little trip. We’re in Paris!”
“Paris, wow, I had no idea.”
“Mm-hmm, it’s technically for work, and Arthur is with us, but I don’t mind having plenty of shopping time to burn during the day. I’ve gotten you some nice things, and Cici, too.”
“Thanks.” I sighed and fought back the urge to tell her that instead of nice things, I’d rather she was here.
“How are the boys?”
“They’re in London,” I reminded her.
“Oh, right, okay. Of course, the anniversary,” my mom muttered.
“So, you know what happened their sister?”
“Of course, it’s such a sad story.”
I waited a beat. “Well, what is it?”
“It’s not really my story to tell.”
I waited for her notorious urge to gossip to overcome her prudence. I didn’t have to wait long.
“Well, it seemed that their mom had a lot of problems. You know, once the boys were born, she moved out without a word to John. Went away to live halfway across the world in India at an ashram or something.”
That didn’t quite match with the impression Brody had given me, but the confidence in my mother’s tone told me she had no interest in anyone’s point of view but John’s.
“Anyway,” my mother continued, “the daughter—Emily, I think her name was—inherited those problems. She drank a lot, and apparently, got into drugs at thirteen years old at one of the fancy boarding schools she went to outside London. From there it was a downward slide into an overdose at the age of eighteen.”
“Wow. That’s so sad,” I murmured, staring across the kitchen island at the sitting room, unseeing. “They all must have felt so… alone.”
“Alone? You mean the boys or Emily? John certainly did. His wife abandoned him and then his daughter died, can you even imagine?”
I didn’t bother pointing out that the boys had also lost their mother and their sister.
Minutes later, my mom hung up, rushing off for a massage.
I went upstairs, too restless to sleep but having nothing else to do. It was exactly the kind of night that called for a sexy audiobook and vibrator. But Brody still had my goddamn stuff.
