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“That’s because I wanted to mess with more than your mind.”
Emily spoke in a pleading voice. “Could you two please remember there are innocent ears in the room?”
“You mean you don’t want to hear how I fantasized about your mom—”
“Na-na-na-na. I’m not listening. Na-na-na-na.” Emily put her fingers in her ears.
Anne giggled. “Oh. I haven’t really felt good enough to laugh in a while. But it makes me dizzy.”
With a knock at the door, their food was delivered. Steven and Emily ate at the table to keep any strong food aroma away from Anne, who managed to swallow a few bites of pasta while sitting on the couch.
“I’m going to be so out of shape by the time this is over,” complained Anne. “The doctor said I shouldn’t stress my body with exercise. When I was pregnant with y’all, I was doing all my normal exercise the whole time. I hardly slowed down at all.”
“Well, I think I shouldn’t try to do an Iron Man competition this summer. I’m already getting behind on my training.”
“But, I hate for you to miss it. If we have a baby—”
“When we have the baby,” he said. “When we have the baby, I can still do a competition next year. I’m not planning to drop the training altogether. I don’t have to do it every year, as long as I don’t slack off too much.”
“Maybe next year, Spencer could do an Iron Man competition. Y’all could maybe train together,” said Emily. She noticed her mom’s smug smile. “And my suggestion doesn’t mean anything. He’s only a friend. And you have to promise you won’t talk about me to Connie.”
“Well, of course I’m going to talk about my children to Connie. And she’ll talk about hers as well. That’s what moms do.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
“So, you promise?”
“I promise.”
At her easy capitulation, she was suspicious. “What exactly are you promising?”
“I promise I know what you mean.” Her mom’s smile was way too devious.
*****
Tuesday morning, Grace called Spencer at work, and alarms went off in his head. They communicated every day, but usually with a text or two. And she’d never called him at work before. His mind was quickly filled with images of accidents and emergencies, as he hurried to answer.
“Grace? What’s wrong?”
“Why do you think something’s wrong? Can’t a girl call her brother unless there’s a problem?”
“Not you. What’s wrong?”
“It’s just... I didn’t know if I should even bother you. But I saw these pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Gherring in the paper.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that yesterday. But it’s a pretty blurry picture, right? I mean, you can’t really tell for sure who they are?”
“Well, yesterday’s was like that, but today’s picture is really clear. I don’t know what she looks like, but it’s definitely Steven Gherring.”
“Today’s picture?”
“Yes, today’s picture shows them walking together. And she looks really sick, and she’s hanging onto his arm.” She paused and cleared her throat. “It looks like they’re coming off a hiking trail.”
Spencer’s stomach was instantly in knots. “Did she have on a pink tank top? And was his shirt white?”
“Yep.”
