“After dinner, maybe,” Hattie said, then added, “Shh, girls! I’m on the phone with your aunt.” To Cara, she said, “I’m sorry, minor distraction here. You were saying?”
“Just that the police showed up here and started asking me and Nolan all kinds of questions. Like I would know anything about Dan’s life these days. It was just so weird, and even Alli was pulled into the interview.” Cara sounded distraught. “Thank God the boys weren’t around.”
The boys, Hattie knew, were Nolan’s sons from his first marriage. “They’re in town?”
“This year. Judith had them at Thanksgiving,” she said, the last phrase with just a trace of a sneer in her voice. It was no secret that Cara and Nolan’s ex had never gotten along, probably due to the fact that Cara was involved with Nolan long before he and Judith had divorced. “And if you ask me, it’s all kind of moot anyway. Ezekiel’s twenty-two and Isaiah is only a couple of years younger. They only show up to appease Nolan. They’d much rather be snowboarding or drinking or God-only-knows what.” Cara’s relationship with her stepsons had always been rocky; partially because of Judith’s hatred of her ex’s second wife and partially because Cara had always treated them as if the “step” was more important than the “son” in her relationship with her husband’s boys. “So,” she said, more than ready to change the topic, “how’s Mom?”
“Good, I guess. Still wanting to run my life and still sneaking cigarettes.”
“While she’s being treated for cancer?” Cara’s tone was disbelieving. “She’s nuts. Does her doctor know?”
“What do you think?” She slowed for a light and waited as a woman crossing the street stopped dead center to check her cell phone. “She doesn’t know that I know.”
“Have you called her on it?” Cara accused.
“Oh, yeah. A couple of times. But she denies it, and since she doesn’t light up in front
of my face, she thinks she’s pulling a fast one. As she says, repeatedly, it’s her life.”
“I know how hard it is to quit, but it is possible.” She sighed loudly. “I suppose I should call her.”
Hattie could envision her half sister gnawing at her lip in indecision. The light changed and the driver of a pickup heading the opposite direction honked, causing the woman in the crosswalk to visibly start and scurry for the curb.
Hattie eased through the intersection and started searching for somewhere to park. Downtown was clogged today, traffic stalling near the brick courthouse where a gigantic tree still festooned in holiday lights rose over the small patch of grass on which it had been planted over a century earlier.
Cara, earlier reticent to talk, was now on a roll. “With Mom it’s just so damned complicated.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hattie agreed. Then feeling closer to her half sister than she had in years, suggested, “Why don’t you come over to the house soon? Maybe before New Year’s sometime? The girls would love to see you. Bring Alli and Nolan and the boys.”
“Oh, God . . . no! I mean, maybe just me and okay, Alli, if I can pry her away from her phone, but trust me, Isaiah and Ezekiel wouldn’t be interested. They’re barely ever at the house as it is, only here now because of winter break. As I said earlier, they’re far from being ‘boys.’ And Nolan’s always busy, like twenty-four/seven busy.”
Hattie got really lucky. Despite the throng of people who were bustling along the sidewalks where shops boasting after-Christmas sales were doing a banner business and cars were jamming up the side streets, a parking spot was actually opening up. There is a God! Hattie turned on her blinker and waited as an elderly woman at the wheel of an older Buick the size of Manhattan backed up slowly. “Okay, then it’ll be just us girls.”
“Yeah . . .” Cara didn’t sound very convincing. “I, uh, have gifts I didn’t get over before Christmas for Mallory and McKenzie. Just let me check with Nolan and look over the calendar, okay?”
“Anytime would be great. Let me know.” Finally, the big boat of a car lumbered off and she hit the gas to zip into the oversized space.
“You know,” Cara admitted, “I’ve thought about going and seeing Dan, but . . . he’s in intensive care and I don’t think he ever really forgave me for Nolan and . . . since we’re divorced . . . I mean, I’m not even his most recent wife. Has Akina seen him? Wait. Stop. Sorry. What she does isn’t the issue, is it?” Again a long-suffering sigh as Hattie slid her Camry into Park. “I suppose you’ve seen him.”
“Yes.”
“Is he going to pull through?”
“I hope so. You’ll have to ask his doctors.”
“They won’t tell me anything,” Cara complained. “With you it’s different. You’ve always had the real connection to the family, to Dan or Bart or Cade or whomever,” she said with enough irony to make Hattie cringe a little. “I don’t know what you find so fascinating about that family, but . . . oh, well. Look, I’m not going to call the hospital. You can just update me, okay? Hey, I’ve got to go; Alli’s calling me on the other line.”
Before Hattie could say “good-bye,” her sister had ended the call.
“Great,” she said to the empty airspace as she yanked off her headset and cut the engine. The girls were already working their seat belts to get out of their booster seats, which as Mallory had mentioned time and time again, they were nearly too big for. “Becky Davis doesn’t have to sit in one,” she’d argued just this afternoon when Hattie had insisted the girls climb into the boosters.
“Becky Davis sits in the seat without a booster,” Mallory had complained.
“She must be older than you.”
“Nuh-uh, she’s in our grade,” Mallory had said as she’d reluctantly plopped into the dreaded booster seat. For once McKenzie had been nodding in complete agreement with her twin. “And Stacy Kendall and Lena, they don’t have to either.”
“Or Charlie or Robert,” McKenzie chimed in.