Page 100 of Key West Homecoming

“What kinds of things?”

“Anything. A bird she saw. Something she read in the newspaper. A joke she thought you’d like. When you called, she’d get through some of it and then the two of you would hang up, and she’d put the envelope back for the next time.”

Emma sat very still.

“I don’t know what happened to the envelopes,” Edmund said. “Gloria wasn’t sentimental about paper. She was sentimental about people.”

“Oh, Edmund.”

“I know, honey.”

“She was writing things down to tell me, and I was in a meeting.”

“Emma, she was eighty-three and had a great deal of time on her hands. You were thirty-four and didn’t. She understood that. She wasn’t keeping score.”

Emma looked toward the palms.

“I wish I’d called more.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I wish I’d known there was a list.”

“If you had known, you would have called out of guilt. Gloria wouldn’t have wanted that either.”

Emma smiled faintly.

“You knew her well.”

“I paid attention.”

That hurt a little, although Emma knew he hadn’t meant it to.

Maybe that was why it stayed with her.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m tired, I’m being fed too much and my daughter has hidden the salt.”

“Still?”

“I found it yesterday. She moved it again.”

Emma laughed.

“Come see me before the end of the week.”

“I will.”

After they hung up, Emma left the notebook closed on the table.

She went inside and put on her shoes. On the way out, she picked up her keys from the small desk by the door.

There were three on the ring now. The rental car. The bungalow she was paying for by the month. And the small brass key from Ocean National Bank on Brickell Avenue that Edmund had closed into her hand in the parking garage and refused to take back.

Emma ran her thumb over the brass key.

She almost called Jake.