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“No.”
“Are you?”
“No. We’re both healthy, Ramsey. We just had our annual physicals last month. We miss you, son.”
And he missed them, too. He just didn’t miss the emotional turmoil that coiled around them every time they got together. Even worse was the state his mother was always left in any time he’d been home.
Missing each other was far healthier for all of them.
“I’ll see what I can do. If not then, soon,” he said, and realized, when he heard Earl’s sigh, that his father knew Ramsey wasn’t going to be home anytime in the near future.
“How are you otherwise?” Earl asked, and Ramsey felt like more of a heel than ever. His father never called him on his lies, his false promises. He’d never said a word about the fact that it was Ramsey’s fault that Diane was dead, either. Not once.
But they all knew that it was.
“I’m fine, Dad. Busier than ever. In addition to my regular homicide duties, I’m working some cold cases. Child abductions.”
At least Earl would know that his son was spending his time doing good work, helping people.
Maybe even bringing families back together to make up for having blown his own apart.
L ucy spent Friday evening with Sandy, giving Marie a break to meet another one of their old high-school friends for dinner. Her mother’s caretaker was talking about moving in with Sandy permanently.
“There’s no point in paying for two places,” she’d said just before leaving that evening. “Sandy’s been asking for years, and I’m getting too old to clean so many bathrooms.”
Sandy had been asking Marie to live with them since Lucy was a little girl—probably because she’d known that life would have been better for Lucy if another woman, a sober woman, had been there to mother her.
And Lucy had a feeling that Sandy’s close call the week before had scared Marie. Sandy, for all of her issues, was the only family Marie had left. And, even drunk, Sandy was a good friend to Marie. She listened. She encouraged. She cared.
“Just one, Luce? A glass of wine won’t hurt. Marie’s been letting me have one a night. After dinner.”
“I’m not Marie.”
And after sitting in that hospital waiting room, afraid her mother was going to die, Lucy couldn’t bear to see Sandy with a glass to her lips again.
“I’ve got the shakes, Luce.”
“Take a pill.”
She didn’t look away from the TV game show that they were watching. She was rooting for the young, pregnant brunette. Sandy wanted the blonde newlywed to win.
Neither of them cheered for the thirty-something, handsome man who was the third contestant at the podium.
The blonde won a bonus trip. Sandy smiled. Sat on the edge of her chair. She’d lost weight again and her size zeros were hanging off her bones.
Caught up in the show, Sandy didn’t ask again for something to drink until an hour later. The requests came every five minutes or so after that until finally, just past ten, Lucy gave her mother a sleeping pill, watched while the woman changed into her pajamas and then held the covers as her mother settled into her queen-size bed. Grabbing the remote control for the flat-screen TV she’d bought Sandy for Christmas, Lucy climbed on top of the covers on the other side of her mother’s bed and settled down to watch a movie she’d seen a hundred times before.
“C arol of the Bells” sounded halfway through the movie. After quickly silencing her ringtone she glanced at the screen of her phone. U up?
Yeah.
Me too.
She smiled as she typed, No shit.
Hot date?
She read the words a second time. Where had that come
