The Game of Love and Death(49)

“Is there any other way?” As he nudged the slowly cooking eggs with a wooden spoon, he thought about bringing up the subject of music again. There were a million questions he wanted to ask her, a million things he wanted her opinion on. But he held his tongue. It wasn’t the time. It might be their last chance, but even so, he wanted to comfort her above all else.

Flora brought up the topic on her own. “Peaches was all right, you know. Your rhythm is better, and you’re bolder on the riffs.”

He tried not to show how much this pleased him. “Their singer — what was her name? She doesn’t hold a candle to you. Even though —”

“Ruby? She was having an off night. She’s marvelous.” She twisted the napkins and started refolding them.

As the eggs finished, he looked for plates. Flora read him like a piece of sheet music. “Second cupboard from the sink.”

He nodded, found the plates, spooned eggs onto them, and finished everything off with a couple of strips of bacon. It didn’t look elegant, and he didn’t include a sprig of parsley the way Gladys did at the Thornes’, but everything smelled as it was supposed to.

“Even though what?” She fidgeted with the napkin in her lap.

He set a plate down in front of her. “Even though you have more in you. I can tell.”

She eyed him warily. “Maybe.” She looked at the food and sighed. “I probably should try to eat something. It’s going to be a long day ahead and I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep.”

“Only if you want to,” Henry said. “I needed a task. And I really, really like bacon.”

The clock struck one. Flora raised a bite of eggs to her mouth. A tear trickled down her cheek. She swallowed and wiped it away. “I’m going to be all alone.”

“That’s not true.” Henry wished he knew how to comfort her. “You have your uncle.”

“Not the same,” she said. “My nana raised me.”

Henry wanted to promise that she’d have him too. But he couldn’t speak those words. She had to want it.

“I’ll stay with you as long as you need,” he said.

“Till the coroner comes. That’d be a kindness.” She sighed and pushed away her plate. “I’ll call him now.”

She walked to the niche where the telephone was kept. Then she dialed the operator, who connected the line. In a brief conversation, she quietly provided all the necessary information. Her voice cracked once, and Henry’s eyes stung at the sound of that small break.

She returned to the table, scraped her dish, and began washing up. Henry followed.

“Tell me about your grandmother.” He accepted a wet dish from her hand. As he dried, he thought about life after his mother and sister had passed on. His father wouldn’t allow him to talk about them. Said it wouldn’t change things.

And then, after his father’s death, no one wanted to mention it because of the shame involved. The silence made him feel as if his family had never existed anywhere outside his memory. It had been so long he was beginning to doubt any of it had ever happened, that he ever had a family and a sister who loved him, that he was ever anybody’s most important thing in the world.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Whatever you want to remember.”

As they tidied the kitchen, Flora told him story after funny story — her nana had once stored extra frosting in a mayonnaise jar, and Flora accidentally made frosted chicken sandwiches with it. Another time, Flora had used salt instead of sugar when she made corn bread. Her nana choked down an entire piece anyway and said it was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten.

“And she made quilts,” Flora said. “Whenever anyone had a new baby, whenever she had enough leftover material. She learned how from her grandmother, who made them to send secret communiqués to runaway slaves. They used to hide all sorts of messages in quilts and hang them in windows and over fences.”

Henry glanced at the quilt on the table in the parlor. “Was there a message in that one?”

Flora glanced at it. “I’m sure of it. She always put a message in there somewhere, the same one, every time.”

“What was it?”

“It’s silly,” Flora said.

“You don’t have to say.” Henry put the plates back in the cupboard and set to polishing a glass.

“Oh, it’s nothing I can’t say,” Flora said. “It’s just … well, she used to tell me that she loved me in the quilts. She always sews — sewed — a tiny heart in it somewhere.”

“I like that. A secret message,” Henry said. He didn’t think it was at all silly. He loved it, actually. Secret messages had been used to win hearts and wars for centuries. A Spartan general named Lysander used to send them in his belt. It was the only part of Henry’s study of the Peloponnesian War that had interested him. “Let’s find it.”

“She wasn’t finished with this one.”

“Let’s look,” Henry said. “It couldn’t hurt.”

Flora held the fabric in her fingertips, examining it closely. “My word.”

“Did you find it?”

“No,” Flora said. “She finished it. She’s been working on this one forever, and she finally finished.”