“How did she explain her charm being at the lake house if your family had never been there?”
“My family hadn’t, but she had with your mom, I believe.”
“Oh.” Relief courses through me, bursting out in a laugh. “That’s right. Mama would take her friends there sometimes for girlfriend weekends. I didn’t think she had started before your mom left, but I guess she had. Probably their mah-jongg group.”
“You’ll have to ask your mom.”
“Okay.” I suppress the nervousness that rises every time I think of Aiko’s pregnancy, of knowing the answer. “Then I’ll see you in a little bit.”
He draws a deep breath. “I love you, Tru.”
I can’t say it back again. I won’t yet. Not until I know my heart is safe and my hope is not in vain.
“I’ll see you soon, Ezra. Bye.”
It’s hard to hang up, to break even the smallest connection to him, but I do. How the hell will I let him go if Aiko is having his baby? God, the bitter irony of it. I can’t even get my period to come back, and she got pregnant twice by the man I love without even trying.
In the kitchen, Mama’s cooking. Raw meat and fresh vegetables crowd the counter. I set my purse on the island in the center of the room and walk over, give her a squeeze, which she returns.
“You’re cooking already?” I turn to lean against the counter so I can see her face.
“I wanted to make something good.” Mama glances at me, her eyes dark and sober under the vibrant head scarf hiding her hair. “You’ll be home for dinner?”
I assess the food. Pork chops, string beans, corn on the cob, sweet potatoes.
“All this for just us?” I ask.
“Just us.” She blows o
ut a breathy chuckle, blinks, licks her lips when they tremble. “Some days it gets bad, missing your father. I know it sounds silly, but it helps when I cook his…his favorite things.”
That feeling I usually try to hide from seizes my unsuspecting heart. Grief. Desolation that Daddy will never walk through that door. Never call me baby girl again. Tears sting my eyes.
“I miss him, too,” I whisper. “All the time. I keep wondering when it stops hurting.”
“For me, it won’t.” Mama scrubs dirt from the sweet potatoes, not looking at me. “I lost the love of my life, and it blasted a hole in the world. It doesn’t so much stop hurting as you just get used to the pain, remember how to wake up in the bed alone. Oh, you have to learn everything all over again like a baby learning to walk because I forgot how to live without that man.”
There are a million things I want to say, want to ask, but she’s never spoken this openly about her grief and I’m afraid anything I say would make her stop.
“Sometimes,” she continues, “I go into his office and pull out those stinky cigars he used to hide.”
“You knew about those?” I ask, my question, my stunted laugh, teary.
“He knew I knew.” She chuckles, snapping the ends of the string beans. “We had no secrets, Tru.”
Her probing stare turns on me. “How did it go with that Washington girl?”
The reminder of our present drama jerks me from the past.
“Good.” I turn around to help snap the ends from the beans. “She’s agreed to the conditions I laid out.”
“So she’s taking it out of the book? The lies about your daddy and Ruth?”
“Yeah. The publisher won’t release it if she doesn’t. And I have final approval.”
“You’re something else, girl.” Mama laughs and shakes her head.
My conversation with Ezra tickles my thoughts. Not the hard parts that he and I have to sort through for our future, but the mysterious parts about our parents’ pasts.