“What flavor?” Millie’s glasses had fogged up from standing in front of the freezer. “Hurry. I don’t want all the cool getting out.”
Jude crossed her arms over her chest, leaned back against the table. She heard Emmy close the front door just hard enough for the sound to travel back to the kitchen.
Millie’s jaw started to work, but slowly. She didn’t have many teeth left to grind. “I don’t remember who all of the jurors were, but the one I do—he probably won’t be able to help you. He’s got dementia. Not like Myrna, but his inhibitions are gone. His brain thinks a thought and it comes straight out of his mouth.”
“You’ve been doing that since I’ve known you.”
“Smart-ass.” Millie took out one of the ice creams and slammed the freezer door shut. “I don’t know what you’ve got planned as far as tearing Emmy’s life apart, but she adored her mother. And her mother adored her. Myrna was there every single second of the day—tending her, holding her, walking the floor, staying up at night with worry, making sure she was safe, all while you were galivanting around California with your free love and granola.”
Jude knew the old woman was trying to bait her. “What are you hiding?”
“You’re one to talk.” Millie’s voice sounded hoarse. “I will not let you bad-mouth Myrna with her body barely in the ground.”
“It’smy motherin the ground.” Jude was fed up with her nastiness. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”
“You never made it a secret you wanted to dance on your mother’s grave.”
“That was forty-two goddam years ago.” Jude worked to keep her voice down. “You need to stop this, Millie. Right now. There is nothing you can say to hurt me more than I’ve already hurt myself. I’m not that person anymore. I’ve done my penance. Do I look like I’m still that same desperate nineteen-year-old child to you?”
Millie huffed a breath. The tension drained away as quickly as it had come. She put the ice cream down on the table. “Honey, I’ve been walking this earth for nearly a hundred years. Every person I meet looks nineteen years old to me.”
Jude could hear the sadness in her tone. She sounded tired. Nearly a hundred years was a long time to be indignant. It had to be lonely, too. She’d outlived her husband and son. Survived the death of countless friends. Six weeks ago, she’d lost the last of three siblings, her baby brother. She’d buried his wife, her best friend of over seven decades, just the day before. And now, she was probably scared of losing Emmy and Cole, too.
Millie had participated in the conspiracy of silence. The blow-back could hit her as hard as Jude.
Jude let out a long sigh. She couldn’t be angry anymore. She let logic take over. Millie had laid out all the clues before she’d tried to distract Jude with a needless argument. She could think of only one man who could tarnish Myrna’s reputation.
Louis Singh’s family had owned the hardware store going back to Jude’s time. When Jude and Henry had trekked from the station to the library, they would sometimes skirt to the lot behind the store to see if Myrna’s car was parked between the wood piles.
Still, she had to confirm with Millie. “Louis Singh has dementia. You’re worried if we interview him about being a juror on the trial, he’ll tell Emmy he had an affair with Mom.” Millie stared into the distance. “He still goes into the store every day. Sonny keeps him in the back so he doesn’t bother customers. Gives him old invoices to go through all day. Poor fool thinks he’s still working.”
She felt the weight of Millie’s sadness. Myrna had been lost in slow motion, and now another friend was fading away, too. “Thank you.”
Millie waved her off. “Take some Blue Bunny. Taybee bought too much. I can’t eat all of that on my own.”
Jude left the cup off the table, but for reasons unknown, she wrapped her arms around the old woman and pulled her into a gentle hug. Millie felt impossibly frail, as if her bones were made of porcelain. There was an arthritic tremble to her body. Jude could’ve counted every vertebra in her bent spine.
“Okay.” Millie gruffly patted Jude’s back. “Silly girl. That’s enough. Don’t get all touchy-feely San Francisco on me.”
Jude was still smiling when she walked out the front door. Emmy was leaning against the cruiser eating her ice cream with the tiny plastic spoon that came with the cup. She watched Jude walk down the porch stairs.
Jude said, “Louis Singh was on the jury. What time does the hardware store close?”
Emmy looked at her watch. “Half an hour. What was that about?”
“I’ll tell you on the way. We need to get to the store before it closes.”
They both got into the car. Emmy pulled up the driveway. Took a sharp turn onto the back roads. Jude tried to think of the best way to tell her about Myrna and Louis Singh. She had always been a firm believer in getting hard conversations out of the way quickly so you could address the fallout and move on, but anytime she was dealing with Emmy, all her carefully constructed rules went out the window.
Emmy asked, “Are you going to tell me why the grown-ups sent me outside with some ice cream? Is Scruffy getting sent to the farm?”
“When I was a kid, Mom had an affair with Louis Singh.”
“Oh, yeah. Mom told me.” Emmy looked at her. “Is that what you and Millie were being so secretive about?”
“Myrna Cliftontold you she had an affair?” Jude put emphasis on the name, because her mother had never been the type of person who admitted to doing anything wrong.
“The Myrna Clifton who had Alzheimer’s sort of let it slip.” Emmy turned onto the main road. “It was after one of their card games they used to play with Father Nate and Louis Singh.We were washing dishes, and Mom looked at Dad and said, ‘You know, Louis was a terrible lover, but he liked to braid my hair.’”
