Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(25)

“It’s lovely,” Amber said. “To be reminded that there’s someone for everyone.”

Who was this person she was talking to, Maureen wondered. “Ma. Are you drinking in the afternoon again?”

“It gives you hope.”

“Ma.”

“Who’s gonna love you when I’m gone?”

“Ma.” Amber was hitting the box wine again, had to be. Though she didn’t sound like it.

“Maureen, Nat and I have been talking. We’ve been discussing the future.”

“I’m staying in New Orleans,” Maureen said, exasperation creeping into her tone. “I’m staying a cop in New Orleans. I’m sorry if that doesn’t make me as marriageable as old pride-of-Eltingville Lori DiNunzio.”

“Young lady,” Amber said, “we weren’t talking about your future. You’re a grown woman. You can do what you want. We’re talking about our future, his and mine.”

“Oh, wait, what are you trying to tell me? Did y’all decide about Florida?”

“Kind of.”

Maureen stood up. The blanket she was wrapped in fell to the porch. Amber and Nat had been discussing the move south for a while. Maureen knew this; they’d kept her in the loop. Amber had hesitated to consent, though, claiming reluctance to part with the only house she had ever owned, the only thing of real financial value that was hers. Maureen partially believed her. She also thought Amber was old-fashioned and wouldn’t move and cohabitate with a man she wasn’t married to. The obstacle there was Maureen’s father, twenty years in the wind.

“Ma, did Nat propose?”

Amber waited a long time to respond. “We’re not kids. It’s not like he’s going to get down on one knee and do something silly like that. Lord knows, we don’t need to be throwing away money on a ring.”

Maureen felt such an ache in her heart for her mother to have those things that she could barely breathe.

“But, yes,” Amber said, “Nat and I have discussed it. It would be much easier for us to move, to get a mortgage on a condo if we were married. And I could drop my insurance and get on his plan. With his retirement package from the city, it’s a much better plan than mine from Macy’s, and, well, I’m not getting any younger.”

“Ma, that’s amazing,” Maureen said. That sly devil, he hadn’t dropped a single hint. Even off the force and out of practice he could play it close to the vest with the best of them. Or maybe, Maureen thought, you’re not much of a detective yet. “I’m so excited. Is Nat there? Can I talk to him?”

“See, there you go again,” Amber said. “We’re talking about it and you’re ready to send out the invitations. And before any of it goes any further, there’s something we need to discuss, you and me.”

“What’s that? The honeymoon?”

“Your father,” Amber said. “We need to talk about him.”

“I forgot about him,” Maureen said after a moment.

“I didn’t,” Amber said.

“Of course not,” Maureen said. “And I didn’t mean I forgot forgot. I just, I don’t think about him much.”

“You know that I never divorced him after he disappeared,” Amber said. “I never did anything about it. Legally, we’re still married.”

“I hate that thought,” Maureen said.

“So I’m looking into something,” Amber said. “As a possible solution.”

“And what’s that?”

“Having him declared dead.”

“I can get behind that,” Maureen said.

“So if Nat starts the process of having him declared dead, which may involve looking for him, you’re okay with that.”

“I have one request,” Maureen said.

“What is it?”

“If you find him,” Maureen said, “don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Where he is, where he went when he left.”

“Believe me,” Amber said, “I don’t want to know those things, either.”

“Good,” Maureen said. There was one thing concerning her father, she realized, that she wanted to know. “So this is kind of a weird question.”

“Yes, we’re having sex,” Amber said. “We are consenting adults. We’re old, we’re not dead.”

“Oh. My. God. That was not what I was going to ask. At all.”

“Well, then,” Amber said, “what was your question?”

Maureen struggled to recapture the original thought. “Oh, I got it. Daddy’s ring, the wedding ring. You won’t wear it anymore, will you? Nat will give you a new one.”

“I stopped wearing it not too long after you left New York,” Amber said. “I think maybe I took it off after we got home from your academy graduation. I forget.”

That’s a lie, Maureen thought. Amber had worn that gold band for eighteen years after the man who’d given it to her was gone. Amber would remember not only the day, but also the hour she took off that ring.

Maureen waited, listening to her mother’s breathing through the phone, knowing Amber was carefully weighing what she would say next, and how much she would let it reveal.