She smiles weakly.
I go through the back way, Zach at my heels. The rain has stopped, and the sun is coming out just in time for it to go down in an hour or two.
I call.
Two rings. Three. Four.
“Palm Springs is hot this time of year,” she says instead of hello.
Her words are slightly slurred. Has she been drinking? Her voice is the same. Raspy.
My mouth is suddenly dry. “Hey. It’s me. Henry.”
“I know that, sugar. I miss the days before caller ID.” A lazy exhale. “You sound less concussed.”
I fight the urge to hang up. “Yeah.”
“I’m surprised to hear from you so soon,” she says. “What’s going on in Colorado?”
“Work. Family.” I clamp my fingers around the porch rail until my knuckles pale. “You?”
“Oh, you know. Aqua aerobics with three women who think disco never died. Bridge on Tuesdays. We argue about whether SPF has a smell.” She cackles lightly. “That sort of glittering retired life.”
It’s a bit. The kind designed to keep strangers an arm’s length away. I’m not a stranger and also I am.
“Have you—” I start but then stall. What? Have you ever thought about me for more than five minutes? “Have you ever been to Colorado?”
“Once,” she says quickly. “Didn’t stick.” A clink of glass against a counter. “The dry air made my skin feel all tight.”
“But you worked in Vegas. It’s as deserty as Colorado. Is deserty even a word?”
Damn, what the hell am I saying?
“Sure, it’s a word.” She laughs. “Makes sense. I never said I made any sense, though. And you’re right. Vegas is just as dry. But Vegas paid the bills. Next question.”
O…kay. Moving on.
“Did you ever meet my grandparents? I mean, on my father’s side. Your in-laws.”
“Sure I did. I was married to your father for about five minutes, after all. But I told him we had to live in Las Vegas, and he agreed. Then, of course, I met your grandfather again when he came to me after the divorce, and…”
She doesn’t have to finish. I know what she’s saying.
When she sold me to my grandfather for a hundred thousand dollars.
I won’t make her say it. And I won’t dwell on it.
Silence for a few moments, until she continues.
“Did you call to talk about your grandparents and the dry weather, or are we going to do the mother-son thing where you tell me things I can’t fix and I say ‘uh-huh’ a lot and we both feel shitty about it?”
A laugh escapes me. “You’re direct.”
“Sugar, young girls get to be coy. Old women smoke and tell the truth.”
“Have you always been old?”
“Inside? For a long damned time.” She inhales. “Outside? Just for the past ten years or so.”
