Things We Do in the Dark(88)

Two days before her testimony, she was a bundle of nerves. She had spoken to Madeline Duffy on the phone twice after their initial meeting, and while she felt prepared, it scared her to imagine the jurors’ faces. Duffy explained that the courtroom would be closed to spectators and journalists, but that still left twelve pairs of ears in the jury box listening to every word she said and how she said it. Twelve pairs of eyes would be observing her body language, her facial expressions, her tears.

And her mother would be there. Watching.

“Remember that it’s all right to cry,” Duffy said during their last phone call. “Everyone in that room is on your side. It’s important to express what you feel.”

It was the exact same thing her mother had said, but what Duffy didn’t know was that Joey had been trained not to cry. There was little chance she’d be able to summon tears tomorrow, as much as the crown attorney was not so subtly asking her to.

“Joelle,” a soft voice said, and she looked up to find Tito Micky standing in the doorway of her bedroom.

She’d been so immersed in her novel that she hadn’t heard her uncle’s footsteps coming down the hallway. It was her third reread of Sidney Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes, her absolute favorite book, which was about a woman who’s framed for a crime she didn’t commit. When she finally gets out of prison, she becomes a professional thief who travels the world pulling off daring heists, changing her name and appearance whenever she needs to. And of course she gets revenge on the people who wronged her, and also falls in love along the way.

“You want to come with us into town?” Tito Micky asked. “Summer activities at the YMCA. I have to drive the boys.” Dribe da boys. “Afterward, you can help with the groceries. Now that you’re helping your lola with the cooking, she wants you to help with the shopping.”

In the daytime, her uncle was just a skinny man with a potbelly, not a monster lurking in the dark. Still, Joey couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do less. Alone in the car with Tito Micky? No thanks.

“After we do the shopping, I can drop you at the bookstore. And I’ll give you ten dollars to spend there. Good distraction, huh?” Her uncle attempted a charming smile, exposing a row of tobacco-stained teeth.

Wait. Ten dollars? That was a new release paperback with change to spare.

“Okay,” she said tentatively, sitting up.

“And while you’re at the bookstore, I can go to the sports pub across the street. There’s a baseball game on, and I’ve made a little bet about who will win.” Tito Micky winked. “Just don’t tell your tita.”

A few minutes later, Joey was sitting in the front seat of her uncle’s station wagon, excited. Only the two older boys were going to the YMCA that afternoon, as Carson had an upset tummy. After the boys were dropped off, she and Tito Micky headed to the supermarket. They finished the shopping quickly, and Tito Micky placed the meats and cheeses in the cooler he kept in the trunk. Then they headed over to Main Street.

“At Christmastime, they put up a big tree in the square.” Tito Micky pulled into a parking spot right in front of the bookstore. “It’s thirty feet tall, and they light it all at once. There’s Christmas carolers and a Santa Claus parade.” Santa Clowse parade. “We always take the boys and get hot chocolate. You’ll enjoy it.”

Joey felt a pang. Her first Christmas without her mother. She hadn’t even thought about that.

Her uncle opened his wallet and plucked out a ten-dollar bill, his fingertips brushing hers unnecessarily as he handed it to her. He pointed across the street to a sports bar called the Loose Goose. “I’ll meet you back here at three forty-five, okay? We have to pick the boys up at four.”

She had two whole hours to herself in a bookstore, with ten whole dollars to spend. She was so giddy, she was practically bouncing. They both got out of the car, and Tito Micky leaned against the driver’s-side door and lit a cigarette.

Standing on the sidewalk, Maple Sound was so different from what Joey was used to. Unlike Toronto, which was filled with people of all races and religions, and who spoke many different languages, Maple Sound was so … homogeneous. Her mother never did understand why her sister and brother-in-law had opted to move to a small town two hours north, away from the diversity of city life.

“You’ll be dog piss on white snow,” Ruby had said to Tita Flora back then. “You’re going to hate it there, and they’re going to hate you.”

Joey suspected that her aunt and uncle actually did hate it here, and would bet that Tito Micky would move back to the city in a heartbeat if he could. But Tita Flora seemed determined to stick it out, if only to prove her sister wrong.

At the moment, though, none of that mattered. When Joey stepped inside the bookstore, she took a long, deep inhale, and felt a genuine burst of joy. Every bookstore, everywhere, smelled the same.

It smelled like home.



* * *



Jason and Tyson were starving when they got home, and they headed straight to the kitchen to eat whatever snack their grandmother had prepared for them. Joey put the groceries away while Tito Micky headed straight back outside. The moment they walked in the door, Tita Flora had barked her displeasure at the giant pile of leaves her husband had left on the pond side of the house. He’d raked them that morning, and the leaves were supposed to be burned by the time she got home from work.