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“Will you split it with me?”
“You bet.” But he didn’t place the order. Instead, as she wiped her hands on her napkin, he touched her face. “What’s your heart, your conscience, telling you?”
“This mother lost the worst thing she could lose, and she wants to talk to me. I’m worried about getting Dr. Jack or Dr. Redmond, or the hospital, in trouble. But I feel like I owe her this conversation. We all owe her this conversation.”
“Okay.” He went back to the fries, but he still didn’t order the ice cream. She didn’t notice. She was thinking. After a long moment, she picked up her phone, typed in the number and sent a text.
Her hands were shaking as she showed it to him. Mrs. DaCosta, I understand you want to see me. I’m headed out of town this afternoon for Easter, but please call or text me if you still wish to meet.
“I guess we should start heading for home,” she said.
“Okay. Let me toss the trash.”
“I’ll do it. It’ll be hard for you to slide out your door, close as you are to the menu board.”
She dumped the trash in the nearest can and headed back to the truck. He was watching her in the mirror, keeping his eye on her in the busy parking lot. He was like that.
She’d left the door open. As she reached for the strap to lift herself back in, her phone chimed. She stopped, palm braced on the seat, and retrieved the phone from her back pocket. It was probably Rory, or her mom. Beulah. It didn’t have to be…
Could you meet now, at the park near my home? I’m texting you the address. Tell me your ETA.
She showed it to Brick. Her heart was pumping too hard. He didn’t say anything, just helped her back into her seat.
Les could reasonably put her off until after Easter. Which would give her time to re-think it, back out if she decided to go with Tish’s advice. She wasn’t mentally prepared. She’d thought it would be hours, days, before she heard from Mrs. DaCosta. If at all.
Brick had waited her thought process out, but now he spoke. “What do you want to do, Les?”
“Go home. Run away.” She gave him the ghost of a smile. “I guess we’re going to the park. You saw the address. Do you know where it is?”
“Yeah. Tell her it will take us about thirty minutes to get there.”
As Les put on her seatbelt and sent the response, Brick backed the vehicle out and returned to the busy road. When he eventually spoke again, his question surprised her. “Feel like you packed everything you need for Easter?”
She marshaled her thoughts. Her voice sounded wooden to her. “I want to stop at that garden statue place on Highway 220 and pick up something for Mom and Daralyn.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“I need to do this alone,” she said abruptly. “So when we get there, you can drop me off at the park. I’ll text you when we’re done.”
He made a noncommittal sound. She struggled out of the muck of her thoughts to shoot him a purposeful stare. “I mean it, Brick.”
He made a turn at a light. “I’ll wait at a distance, like I did for the M&M. But I’m not leaving you.”
“I’m not a child. I don’t need you to hold my hand.”
“Everyone needs someone to hold their hand. The important thing is the timing. Do me the honor, doc?”
He put his hand on the console, palm up, his gray eyes touching hers. “‘She smiles gently, seriously, and takes my hand. Leads me out into a night as luminous as noon, more deeply real, simply because of her hand, than any dream Shakespeare or I or anyone ever dreamed.’”
“Modified a bit for my own purposes,” he told her. “Anthony Hecht, ‘Peripeteia.’ I know only two boxers can be in the ring, doc. But at the end of the round, at the end of every round, I’m going to be the one in your corner. Got it?”
She didn’t know what her response should be, so she settled for accepting the comfort and strength of his hand. As his fingers closed over hers, she rolled the words of the poem through her mind, a distraction from what lay ahead.
Feeling like this twice in the same day was almost unbearable. Her palms were sweaty, her mind caught in memories of that horrible night. Mrs. DaCosta flying at her, hitting her. Screaming.
Sully was right; there was nothing she could say that would mean anything, which meant there was no rehearsal or practice for this. She’d do as Tish said, be the receptacle for whatever Mrs. DaCosta needed to tell her. She had to believe her gut was right, that this wasn’t a legal trap. This was a mother that needed something from her. She needed to do her best to offer it.
The park was a neighborhood amenity, a small playground surrounded by green space and picnic tables. A square building supplied restrooms and water fountains in adult and child sizes.
