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She turned and said to his back, “She’s in the living room, sitting on the sofa with her daughter.”
When she turned back, Uncle Gun was heading to the house as well. Then Kelsey and her dad were alone in the garage. Her dad looked at her strangely—like she was no longer familiar to him.
“What?” she asked.
He studied her a few seconds longer, then shook his head. “Nothing. Where’s your mom?”
“She’s in the kitchen with Hannah. I don’t know where Dunc is.”
“I sent him on a beer run.”
“Then everybody’s accounted for, I guess.”
He came close and put his arm around her. “How’re you doin’, pix? You’ve been strong for Maisie and Rhona all day, but I know you loved the Turners, too.”
Kelsey sighed and rested her head on her father’s strong chest. She’d cried a lot over the past two weeks. She’d cried when her father had told her what Dex had found. She’d cried on the way to their house, her father plowing their way through snow-buried streets like he was laying the roads down as they went. She’d cried at the scene. And every day thereafter, comforting Maisie, needing comfort herself. In the quiet spaces amid all the ways life continued busy, tears always rose up.
She’d cried today, through the church service and at the cemetery.
And then, as they’d walked away from the new graves, the urge, the need, for tears had simply stopped. Her grief was still keen, but it was suddenly calmer.
Now, in her father’s arms, she was sad but felt no tears waiting. “I’m okay,” she told him, and meant it.
He kissed her head. “I’m glad. Let’s go in and see what we can do.”
~oOo~
Mr. and Mrs. Turner had been very involved with their church, and seemingly the entire congregation came through the Cranes’ house during the wake. It was well past dark before things began to quiet down and the remaining guests were mostly family and close friends.
Maisie got a migraine, so she and Kelsey rainchecked the tequila, and Linc, her boyfriend, took her home. Hannah and Mom got into an argument, and Dad had Uncle Gun take Hannah home. Mom, Mrs. Crane, and two other women of a similar age, friends of Mrs. Crane, took a couple bottles of wine outside to the little freestanding shed Mrs. Crane called her ‘she-bear cave.’
There were a few people still milling about, but they were no more than vaguely familiar to Kelsey. She wasn’t sure where her dad and Mr. Crane had gone, but she figured a good guess was back to the garage.
Kelsey’s parents had picked her up on the way to the church, so she didn’t have a ride until they were ready to go. The house was a mess, and she didn’t have anything better to do, so she got to work collecting dirty dishes.
She had the cooking dishes soaking and had collected everything from the living room and was scraping them into the disposal when Dex walked in with a stack of serving dishes from the dining room. He set them on the counter.
“Oh, thanks,” she said. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
“Yeah. Got to talking in the garage.”
It hadn’t escaped her notice that most of the people in the house were women and old folks. And a few young children under the charge of their mothers. All the younger men had either left early or found somewhere to hide—the TV room in the basement or the garage.
“I’ll go get some more dishes,” Dex said and turned back to the dining room.
He made three trips, balancing tall stacks of dishes in such a way Kelsey decided he’d been a server at some point in his life. Kelsey finished scraping and rinsing and filled the dishwasher with as many dishes as it would hold. The rest, she’d have to do by hand.
It was a lot. She sighed and got busy.
As she filled the sink with hot, soapy water, Dex, who was still in the room and had been perusing Mrs. Crane’s extensive collection of vintage salt and pepper shakers as if they were famous works of art, came back to the sink with his sleeves rolled up.
“Is there a towel I can use?”
It was on the tip of Kelsey’s tongue to tell him she didn’t need help, but there were a lot of dishes, and help would be nice. Also, Dex … intrigued her. He wasn’t nearly as intimidating as she’d thought. He seemed kind of lost, really.
“Sure.” She opened the right drawer and pulled out a couple of tea towels. “Thank you for helping.”
“No problem. I like doing dishes.”
