Page 67 of Key West Homecoming

“I didn’t know yesterday if I would be. I think I was worried I’d feel like there was this whole life she kept from me.”

“That would be understandable.”

“But sitting here listening to you, I don’t feel that way.”

Edmund waited.

“I’m glad she had you.”

His eyes filled then, and he looked down.

“Thank you, Emma.”

She reached across the small table and covered his hand with hers.

It felt like the right thing to do.

After a moment, Edmund turned his hand beneath hers and squeezed her fingers.

“Your grandmother would have liked this very much,” he said.

“What?”

“You and me sitting here.”

Emma smiled.

“I think I would have liked seeing the two of you together.”

“You would have found us extremely dull.”

“I doubt that.”

“You didn’t hear us argue about translations of Homer.”

“I don’t even know enough about Homer to argue about Homer.”

“Neither did Gloria. It never stopped her.”

Emma laughed again.

They stayed at the table for another twenty minutes and talked about smaller things. Emma asked about Providence, and Edmund told her he had lived in the same house since 1979. The man across the street played opera too loudly, something Edmund had complained about twice in forty years and admitted he would miss terribly if it ever stopped.

He asked about Chicago.

“I’ve been three times in my life,” he said. “All conferences and all too short. It’s an underrated city, and the people who live there seem oddly unwilling to say so.”

“We’re taught not to.”

“By whom?”

“I’ve never worked that out.”

Edmund smiled.

Then he asked whether she had people.

Emma thought first of Priya.