Today's Reading
"I'll be right back," she said.
"You'll get that address for me." He didn't ask, another psychological trick he'd learned in business. Don't ask. Tell nicely. Lay out the expectation and leave it hanging in the air. Most people avoid confrontation.
Without replying, Zoey Chavez started up the stairs.
He called after her, mostly to get a reaction. "I promise not to steal anything while you're gone."
When she whirled her head to glare at him over one shoulder, John-Parker smirked.
She didn't trust him. He got that. She didn't know him and she was right not to trust a strange man standing on the stoop. But why toss out power vibes of instant dislike?
During her absence, John-Parker strolled through the house. The eat-in kitchen that had once seemed enormous and fancy to him as a kid now appeared small and outdated. Way outdated.
Worn, faded brown Formica counters. Green-and-white-linoleum floors that had long since given up their pattern. But the solid oak in the cabinets, even though old-fashioned, remained in good repair.
He slid his hand across the long, heavy wooden table where he and at least five other boys had stuffed their faces and fought over the last piece of chicken.
He really wanted to walk around the upstairs sleeping quarters but, considering Mamie's niece was up there and he might frighten her, he decided to remember the rooms as they'd been. Wood floors. Double bunk beds in each bedroom. Two dressers. Not room for much else, but all the items growing boys had needed.
Miss Mamie's room was downstairs, toward the back of the house, so he strolled that way, letting memory take him through the laundry room, the den and to her bedroom.
He paused in the doorway, suddenly feeling awkward about invading Mamie's space.
If Mamie had moved away from here, she'd done so recently. Too much was the same.
His mind rolled through the possibilities.
Was Mamie in a nursing home? Was that it?
But why hadn't the niece simply said so?
A ragged old Bible lay on the nightstand. A Bible that Mamie had read to them each night. No matter how the boys had rolled their eyes and groused, she'd insisted they sit and listen.
The pictures on the wall were the same, too.
The stairs overhead creaked. John-Parker glanced up. The niece was coming down again.
Eager for the address, his long strides took him quickly back to the living room.
As Zoey came into sight, he crossed the room and took a seat on the sectional. The worn springs gave beneath his weight. His backside wasn't more than two inches off the hardwood floor.
He felt a little foolish with his knees in the air and his hat in his hand.
The woman pressed a hand to her lips, needing to laugh but refusing to give in. He wondered why she was afraid to laugh.
"Did you get your fill of nostalgia?" she asked, one hand absently smoothing the side of her skirt.
"Yes, and thank you." He would have casually crossed an ankle over his knee but, from this position, he couldn't. "Didn't steal the good silver either."
She gave him a sharp look. "There is silver, you know. The good stuff."
He knew. Oh, did he ever know.
"Look, Miss Chavez, I've driven a thousand miles to see Mamie. At the risk of being rude—" something he was good at him when necessary, although he preferred diplomacy "—I'm here to see Mamie. If you have her address, I'll take it and get out of your way."
Zoey bounced a fist against her mouth. Once. Twice. Finally, she smacked her lips and huffed a sigh. "I don't know how to tell you this. There's no easy way."
A knowing dread rose, dark as circling black buzzards and more terrible than the first day he'd seen this house. The buzzards that had been circling since the moment she'd told him Mamie no longer lived here.
"Is she sick?" Please, God, let her only be sick.
"Not anymore. Aunt Mamie passed away in February."
...
