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“Graham talked me out of it.”
She turned to Graham. “Really? This guy talked you out of going to Toledano?”
Graham smiled. “I do have talents.”
“I never thought you didn’t.”
“Well, I’m not sure it was talent. I’m pretty sure a grown man near to tears helped bring him around. I fell just short of hitting my knees and begging.”
Dave looked pleased at his admission. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“But I was prepared. I need you, Dave.” And then he looked at Billie. “I need you, too. I’ve been trying so hard to hold things together, to give everyone the impression I have everything under control.”
Billie straightened. “Well, then. I think we need that meeting and we need some pizza for lunch. Those guys will do anything if you set a pie in front of them.”
Graham smiled. “Dave said the same thing. Order whatever pizza you want and set it for tomorrow. We’ve got to get back on track. For Frank’s sake.”
Billie lifted her coffee mug. “For Frank’s sake.”
Dave nodded. “Damn straight.”
FRANKLOOKEDATTHEPHONEas if it were defective before setting it back on his bedside table.
He felt like shit. The doctors hadn’t lied when they said the cancer-killing meds surging through his bloodstream would rob him of his energy. No, not just his energy, but his flippin’ manhood. He’d tried to put on a game face for Maggie, but he knew she knew. It was a game they played.
A game all married couples played.
“Did you get in touch with her?” Maggie asked, entering their bedroom with a cup of tea. She’d gone to a health food store and come back with all kinds of disgusting tasting teas and several packages of nasty gum that were supposed to beat back the nausea.
“She don’t answer,” he said, making a face at the steaming cup that smelled like the backside of a troll… or what he imagined a troll’s backside to smell like. “She ain’t ready to talk to me yet.”
“Tess is stubborn. Like Bella.”
Frank sighed. When he’d tenderly taken his mother’s hand and revealed his diagnosis, she’d uttered words he’d never heard her use before… right before telling him to get the hell out of her house. Then she’d called him a liar and accused him of playing with her emotions. She’d even thrown a bottle of menthol rub at him.
Frank hadn’t known how to handle the diminutive woman who’d called him a selfish son-of-a-bitch, and he damned sure wasn’t going to point out her insult actually doubled back on her. He’d merely picked up the thankfully plastic bottle of menthol rub, set it on the chest Bella had imported from the old country, and shut the door softly behind him.
The heavy wood didn’t block out the sound of his mother crying.
God, there was no way a man could prepare himself for hearing his mother sob her heart out, especially when it was something he’d never heard before. Not even during those hard years of covering her bruised face with pancake makeup and losing a baby at the hands of the bastard Frank had never called father had Bella lost control of her emotions.
Maggie rubbed his shoulder, drawing his thoughts back to Tess and the reason she wouldn’t respond to his call. “Time is all she needs.”
“Who? Mom or Tess?”
“Both of them?”
“My mother is in her nineties, Mags. And there is that time thing.”
Maggie arched an eyebrow but didn’t say what they were both thinking. Time wasn’t exactly overflowing from his pockets.
“Well, I’ve had about all I can stand of her stubbornness—Tess not Bella—and if our daughter doesn’t call you before Sunday, she and I are going to have a little heart-to-heart.”
“Don’t, Maggie. Let her alone. She’ll come around.”
“Yeah, she will, even if I have to plant my foot on her rump.” Maggie held out the tea. “Now have a bit of this to help with the ickies.”
“I don’t want it, Mags.”
