Page 85 of Key West Homecoming

Emma looked at him, then slipped the key into the small, zippered pocket inside her purse.

They were almost to the car when Edmund stopped in the parking garage.

He turned away from them and rested one hand against the concrete wall. Emma thought he was tired from the walk. Then his shoulders began to shake.

Rachel had one hand on the car door and looked in the opposite direction, giving him what privacy she could in the middle of a parking garage.

Edmund cried quietly for less than a minute. When he was finished, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his eyes and walked back to them.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

Rachel opened the back door for him.

They drove south with the original will in Rachel’s folder and Gloria’s ring, photograph and notebook in Emma’s tote bag.

At Islamorada, Rachel pulled off the highway and turned into the same Cuban place they had visited that morning.

Edmund looked up. “We stopped here already.”

“You told me Gloria always wanted to stop on the way back.” Rachel put the car in park. “It’s the way back.”

Edmund looked at her.

“Ms. Alden.”

“It’s Rachel.”

H nodded. “That was a kind thing to remember.”

Rachel shrugged. “I notice things for a living.”

They took their coffee to a plastic table beneath the awning. It was warm and noisy, and the air smelled like coffee and toasted sugar.

“How long have you practiced in Key West?” Edmund asked.

“Twenty-two years.”

“And before that?”

“Tallahassee for four years. Sixty lawyers and an office window that looked at a parking garage.” Rachel turned her cup between her hands. “I came to Key West to visit a friend for a long weekend and gave notice when I got home.”

“That fast?” Emma asked.

Rachel smiled. “It wasn’t fast at all. It took four years and a weekend.”

“Drink your coffee, Professor,” Rachel said. “I’d like to be south of Marathon before traffic gets worse.”

“You’re a bossy woman.”

“I’ve been told.”

“It was meant as praise.”

“That’s how I took it.”

Emma smiled at their exchange.

Somewhere after Islamorada, Emma fell asleep in the front seat. She didn’t wake until they were nearly back in Key West.