sobbed.
Nothing I could say would ease her grief or save her from the hurt. This was just the next step: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. Before long, I hoped, some acceptance.
I sat on the arm of her overstuffed chair and put my arm around her. Her tears soaked through the shoulder of my shirt, and I thought the force of her sobs would crack one of her thin ribs.
Eventually, when her tears slowed, I went into the bathroom for the box of tissues and a warm washcloth.
“I’m—so—sorry.” She hiccuped each word as she wiped her nose.
“I’m glad to see you cry. You were worrying me.” She knew what I meant. Her hiccuping breaths slowed as she buried her face in the warm washcloth.
“I want to know what happened,” she said, her voice husky. “I can’t keep wondering, imagining things that. . .”
Imagining things neither of us could express, about what might have been.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I couldn’t put a name to the number, but it looked familiar. Someone I’d called recently. I stepped into the bathroom to answer it, using it as an excuse to give her some space.
“You need to get someone to staff your office.”
Edna Lynch, my demanding grandmama private eye.
“Before nine in the morning?” I returned her irritation with my get-serious tone.
It didn’t work. “Ever hear of an answering service? Sumbody can track you down? Get you to take your messages?”
She had me there. I hadn’t checked my answering machine since yesterday afternoon.
“You have something?”
“I’m standing in the church parking lot in my choir robe calling you, aren’t I? I found Skipper Hinson.”
“Already?” I didn’t ask what her choir was fixing to sing about on a Tuesday morning.
“Yesterday.” She wasn’t letting up on my laxness. “He’s working maintenance and such at the state park this summer. He’ll be working in the gift shop today. It opens at ten.”
“Thanks, Edna. That was quick.”
She gave my compliment a derisive snort, her way of saying,
Of course. You doubted me?
“The funeral’s starting. They’re waving us in the back door.” The phone clicked off.
She knew where to send the bill.
I stepped into the bedroom. “I know where her hitchhiker is. I can talk to him—”
“Where?” Fran sat up like a bird dog on point. “Can we talk to him now?”
“Um, in a while,” I said. “But don’t you have to go—”
“I can still make it to Atlanta by midafternoon. How far is it? I just need a few minutes to pack.”
“Not far—about twenty minutes. Um, I’ll let you pack. Be back in a few minutes to pick you up.”
“I’ll be ready.” She carried the mascara-stained washcloth into the bathroom.
I needed to change shirts. No need to wear a tear-soaked shirt around all day, and I’d just noticed an eggs Benedict blotch.
True to her word, she was pacing in the side yard when my Mustang tires pulled onto the gravel drive twenty minutes later.
I backtracked to Main Street and turned left. The road quickly began the climb into the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“You have any music?” Fran indicated my in-dash AM radio, standard equipment in 1964.
“Some bluegrass is all.” I had wired a portable CD player and updated the primitive speakers in my vintage Mustang—my grandfather’s late-life splurge pulled out of mothballs for me by my dad, when I’d left my large Columbia law firm and my leased BMW.
“That would be nice.”
Fortunately the song that came on was “Foggy MountainBreakdown,” a banjo number, lively and optimistic. Neither of us needed to dwell on a mournful mountain ballad. As a Texas friend of mine had once observed, mountain folk music is full of murder and dying. I tried to argue otherwise, offer a defense of my people. But after listening to some CDs with her ears, I had to admit she was right. Lots of murder and dying. Too much for Fran—or me, right now.
Today, though, the banjo music and the thick
Nothing I could say would ease her grief or save her from the hurt. This was just the next step: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. Before long, I hoped, some acceptance.
I sat on the arm of her overstuffed chair and put my arm around her. Her tears soaked through the shoulder of my shirt, and I thought the force of her sobs would crack one of her thin ribs.
Eventually, when her tears slowed, I went into the bathroom for the box of tissues and a warm washcloth.
“I’m—so—sorry.” She hiccuped each word as she wiped her nose.
“I’m glad to see you cry. You were worrying me.” She knew what I meant. Her hiccuping breaths slowed as she buried her face in the warm washcloth.
“I want to know what happened,” she said, her voice husky. “I can’t keep wondering, imagining things that. . .”
Imagining things neither of us could express, about what might have been.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I couldn’t put a name to the number, but it looked familiar. Someone I’d called recently. I stepped into the bathroom to answer it, using it as an excuse to give her some space.
“You need to get someone to staff your office.”
Edna Lynch, my demanding grandmama private eye.
“Before nine in the morning?” I returned her irritation with my get-serious tone.
It didn’t work. “Ever hear of an answering service? Sumbody can track you down? Get you to take your messages?”
She had me there. I hadn’t checked my answering machine since yesterday afternoon.
“You have something?”
“I’m standing in the church parking lot in my choir robe calling you, aren’t I? I found Skipper Hinson.”
“Already?” I didn’t ask what her choir was fixing to sing about on a Tuesday morning.
“Yesterday.” She wasn’t letting up on my laxness. “He’s working maintenance and such at the state park this summer. He’ll be working in the gift shop today. It opens at ten.”
“Thanks, Edna. That was quick.”
She gave my compliment a derisive snort, her way of saying,
Of course. You doubted me?
“The funeral’s starting. They’re waving us in the back door.” The phone clicked off.
She knew where to send the bill.
I stepped into the bedroom. “I know where her hitchhiker is. I can talk to him—”
“Where?” Fran sat up like a bird dog on point. “Can we talk to him now?”
“Um, in a while,” I said. “But don’t you have to go—”
“I can still make it to Atlanta by midafternoon. How far is it? I just need a few minutes to pack.”
“Not far—about twenty minutes. Um, I’ll let you pack. Be back in a few minutes to pick you up.”
“I’ll be ready.” She carried the mascara-stained washcloth into the bathroom.
I needed to change shirts. No need to wear a tear-soaked shirt around all day, and I’d just noticed an eggs Benedict blotch.
True to her word, she was pacing in the side yard when my Mustang tires pulled onto the gravel drive twenty minutes later.
I backtracked to Main Street and turned left. The road quickly began the climb into the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“You have any music?” Fran indicated my in-dash AM radio, standard equipment in 1964.
“Some bluegrass is all.” I had wired a portable CD player and updated the primitive speakers in my vintage Mustang—my grandfather’s late-life splurge pulled out of mothballs for me by my dad, when I’d left my large Columbia law firm and my leased BMW.
“That would be nice.”
Fortunately the song that came on was “Foggy MountainBreakdown,” a banjo number, lively and optimistic. Neither of us needed to dwell on a mournful mountain ballad. As a Texas friend of mine had once observed, mountain folk music is full of murder and dying. I tried to argue otherwise, offer a defense of my people. But after listening to some CDs with her ears, I had to admit she was right. Lots of murder and dying. Too much for Fran—or me, right now.
Today, though, the banjo music and the thick
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