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“It’s just down the road from the school, so I’m planning on walking here after class lets out. And it’s not far… a few miles max. I can walk that if I need to. But a friend is working here, too, and she said she’d give me a ride in the evenings.”
“I see.”
“It’s not a big deal, Jude.”
“I just wish you’d told me.”
Eleanor sat back in her seat and turned her attention to her phone. “It’s not like you’re my mom.”
I swiped my hand across my forehead, exhausted all of a sudden. There was my opening, but hell if I knew how to take it.
“What’s that look for?” Fortunately for me, Eleanor made it easy. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, God. Did you find something out about Mom?”
Before I could answer, Mabel returned with two vanilla shakes and a basket of fries. I thanked her with a nod and tapped the paper off a straw before placing it in Eleanor’s shake, then doing the same for mine. I nodded at her to drink, then picked mine up.
When I was a kid… maybe five or six years old… my grandmother died. I have a vivid recollection of mom seating me on a shiny rose-colored sofa in the parlor, unconcerned, for once, about the possibility of my shoes messing up the fabric. She handed me a bag of M&Ms candy, waiting until I’d enjoyed several pieces, and then had told me that Grandma was gone.
I remember the salt of my tears mingling with the chocolate in my mouth, my mother’s arm around my shoulders.
Eleanor drew on her straw.
“Dad sent a letter,” I told her, folding my hands in front of me on the table. “The police found Mom’s body.”
Eleanor gasped, the sound sharp like a wounded animal, and stared at me with wide eyes the same icy blue color as mine. The same as our mother’s had been.
“I’m sorry, Lens.”
“What happened to her?” Eleanor was pale, but subdued and tearless. She picked up a french fry and dipped it in her shake before bringing it to her mouth and eating. Was this normal? I didn’t know! I’d never had to deal with this before. God, what if I royally fucked this up… “Jude? What happened to Mom?”
“I don’t know. Dad’s letter was short. He just said that it wasn’t by natural causes, and that we should be cautious.”
“Weneed to be cautious? Does he think someone’s going to try to kill us, too?”
All I could do was shake my head. “I wish I had answers for you. I can only assume that he must have some enemies that he’s worried about… maybe linked to his jail sentence.”
“Jesus.” Eleanor stopped eating suddenly and ran her hands through her hair. “I knew it. Iknewshe wouldn’t have left us like that. She had her faults but she was a good mother.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“When is the funeral?”
“She was buried two weeks ago. I guess the message took a while to reach us.”
“Well, shit. We need to do something, Jude, we need to honor her…”
“I agree. We can drive to her gravesite and do a little memorial for her if you want? Maybe Saturday?”
“As long as I’m back by six so I can start my new job.”
“I should be able to do that. Do you remember that time she tried to make our Halloween costumes?”
Eleanor groaned. “Oh, my God, yes. That was awful. It’s like,Mom, you’re rich. Why not just buy the motherfuckers?But she wanted to be the happy housewife…”
We sat in the booth and shared every funny memory we could think of while our shakes melted and the fries grew cold between us. Every so often Mabel would peer our way with a concerned frown—due to the tears coating both our faces, I was sure. The little diner was rapidly filling, mostly with teenagers around Eleanor’s age, when I finally decided we were cried out and stood to leave.
Eleanor turned and walked into a man standing at the table next to ours. He was tall and leanly built, with dark blonde hair and deep brown eyes, and although he looked to be around my age, he was dressed in dark jeans, a waistcoat, and a bow tie. “I’m sorry—” She went abruptly still.
“Eleanor.”
