Page 102 of Find My Way Down to You

Cary’s mouth opens. I cut him off with a wry grin.

“Stay here. I know.”

Again, his fingers ghost over my knuckles. Tender heat dances up my forearm. I hide in the entryway’s shadows to watch him.

“You’re late.”

Inside the sunroom is an old woman with deep brown skin, big silver curls, and a stern smile. She sits like a queen in a cozy lounge chair.

Across from her is an identical woman. Except, her eyes are closed, posture slack. She looks peaceful. Like she’s sleeping. But I know better now.

Cary does a half bow. “My apologies, Bernice.”

“My friends call me Bernie.” Her accent is thick, Southern. “My grandbabies call me Grammy. Everyone else calls me Mrs.Woods.”

“And what shall I call you?”

She sizes him up. “I don’t know yet. But not Bernice. Only my parents and my late husband called me that.”

“Very well.” Cary smiles. “Do you know who I am?”

Her tongue clucks dismissively. “Of course I do. Been waiting on you forever.”

“Have you, now?”

Bernice’s gaze cheats to the other chair. Where her mortal body is. “My Joseph died eight years ago. Our kids are all grown. They got their own families now.”

She points a wrinkled finger toward the far wall.Wood-framed photographs take up almost every inch. A tapestry of life through decades. Bernice with her husband, her children, then grandchildren. So much joy and laughter caught on film.

Sadly, she admits, “Been just me. For too long. I’m—I’m tired.”

Empathy flashes in Cary’s eyes.

I bite the inside of my cheek while studying the pictures. In her youth, Bernice looked so much like my mom. Cold dread spears me. I don’t want to imagine Mom’s life ending like this. In a house I never visit.

Alone, without Dad.

I don’t want to think about my parents dying at all.

My gaze snags on a photo of Bernice from a different era. Her early twenties, maybe. She’s red-lipped and bright-eyed. The camera caught her mid-performance in a sparkly dress, the audience fawning over her. She was asinger.

From her chair, Bernice admires the same picture. “I was belting in nightclubs before I was old enough to drink.” It’s as if she’s talking to me, not Cary. “That’s how I met my Joseph. In a jazz band.”

He steps over for a closer look. “How long were you a performer?”

“Two decades.” She laughs, big and brassy. Like her voice was meant to take up space. Pack rooms. “Best time of my life. Until my kids came along.”

There’s a flutter in my chest that feels like hope but disappears too quickly.

Cary’s finger draws an invisible map over the other rows of pictures. Bernice with one, two, finally five children.

“And them?” He looks at Bernice, but it’s like his gaze is pointed at me.

“What about them?” Bernice says.

He pauses. As if his next question is something he’s never thought to ask a soul before. “Are you worried about them?”

Bernice sighs. “Nope. My kids will be fine. That was my job as a mother. To love them fiercely. Unconditionally. And to pour so much of my own heart into them that when I died, I’d still be with them.”