This Place of Wonder (20)

I frown, unsettled. “That seems long. I thought it was a heart attack.”

“Sudden death has to be examined, by state order,” he says. A beat of something, then: “I’m sure it’ll be done soon.”

“All right. Thanks.”

He salutes us and wanders out.

Kara says, “That was weird.”

“Very,” I agree. I stare at the door where he exited, wondering what’s really on his mind. What are they looking for in the toxicology reports?

I shake it off. “Never mind. What’s next?”





Chapter Twelve


Maya


After work, I walk from the café to Rory’s house for dinner. I can tell Meadow and Rory have set up a rotating shift of babysitting me, and tonight is her turn. She invited me to supper, and I’m grateful. The tag-teaming will have to end, but tonight I’m hungry and happy after the shift, looking forward to a good meal, glad to have done something useful with my day. My purse is safely stuffed with bags of Jelly Belly beans, my drug of choice. As I walk, I pop them into my mouth one at a time. Pear. Dr Pepper. Tutti-Fruitti. Never licorice, because I pluck them out. Licorice is an abomination.

It’s the little things.

The house sits on a street lined with jacarandas that are spectacular when they’re in full bloom. Right now it’s roses, and in Rory’s yard they climb up the wall in a profusion of pink. I open the gate, and a big mutt the size of a Saint Bernard but with the curly fur of a chocolate poodle comes loping around the house to greet me. I bend and kiss his head. “Hi, Nemo.”

The door bursts open and my nieces spill out to the broad porch, then down the stairs toward me. “Aunt Maya!” they cry. “We misseded you!”

I kneel to welcome their hugs, and they slam into me with the full force of their small bodies, arms and legs flinging around me, hair in my face, in my mouth, the smell of sunshine and dirt and play filling my nose. I am engulfed by them, and close my eyes. “I missed you guys so much!”

Polly, older at five, with wispy blonde hair and Rory’s beautiful blue eyes, pulls back and puts her little hands on either side of my face. “Mommy said you were sick. Are you better now?”

A quick rush of tears stings the back of my eyes. I hate, hate, hate that this has spilled over into their lives. “Almost,” I say.

“Good.” She leans in and kisses me on the lips. Nathan does this. Kisses everyone on the mouth—child, acquaintance, whoever. His philosophy of kisses is that if you love someone, you can kiss them on the mouth. I love it so much.

“Me too!” says three-year-old Emma, pursing her lips. She’s as perfectly round as a baby doll—round eyes, round cheeks, round yellow curls. I bend in and kiss her wet little mouth and she says, “Mwah!”

For one second, the harsh doom of almost hangs over my happiness. You almost lost this forever. I feel winded and just look at them both for two seconds, which seems almost too long. Shaking it off, I take a hand in each of mine. “Let’s go in and see your mom.”

The house is not large, a Craftsman bungalow painted pale green with white trim. A fabulous porch sports dozens of pots—cacti and small shrubs and things I don’t know the name of, all color and shape and California. The entire neighborhood is made up of bungalows in all their beauty, mullioned windows and wide porches, those graceful Arts and Crafts details. It would have been out of reach for a young, newly married couple if not for the generous assistance of Nathan’s parents.

Rory appears at the screen door, her coppery hair glittering in the long slant of sunlight reaching from the western sky. “Hey, girls, let her up!”

I kiss each head. “They’re fine.”

“How was your first day?” she asks. Her feet are bare beneath a yellow sprigged sundress, and her toenails are painted bright green.

“Great, honestly.”

I slide in when she holds the screen door for me. The living room spills into the dining room into the kitchen, where my brother-in-law, Nathan, stands, a white apron around his body. “Hey, Nathan,” I call, raising a hand. I feel off-kilter, unsure of what I should do. I haven’t been here in quite a while, haven’t seen Nathan since New Year’s Eve, when he escorted me out of a party and poured me into an Uber. I flush, remembering. By then, the high-level but still acceptable drinking I’d maintained for more than a decade had spilled over into messy and obvious, and I couldn’t seem to get it back under control no matter what I tried. I made a million rules: Only one drink. Or maybe only one drink per hour. A glass of water between glasses of wine. Switch to beer. Use a small glass. When the moderation techniques inevitably failed and I awakened in the morning with yet another debilitating hangover, I’d vow that today I wouldn’t drink. Just for today. My afternoon self would argue that I deserved wine, that it was my business, my talent.

The memory of New Year’s Eve shames me, lighting heat along my cheekbones. But Nathan comes right over and envelops me in a bear hug. He’s big enough to make it count, tall and broad shouldered, his blond hair smelling of ocean. “I’m so glad to see you, Maya,” he says, squeezing me and rocking me. “We’re all so glad you’re okay.”

As he releases me, he kisses my mouth soundly.

“Thanks for the job hookup,” I say.