Page 28 of Lemon Crush

“Not here, August.” The look she gave me said I might beforced to write an essay on paying attention. “It’s coming towardyou.”

Toward me?

I didn’t panic or open a window on my computer to look for The Weather Channel’s website.

Instead, I stared at my sister. “Let me get this straight. You’re calling from Italy to tell me about the weather here? You’re inItaly, Morgan. That’s all you should be thinking right now. You should wake up every morning and think, ‘Holy bananas, I’m in Italy.’”

“Holy bananas,” she repeated obediently, her lips twitching. “I was hoping you’d check on Ann and make sure she has everything she needs for the kids.”

“Sure, no problem. I’ll text her today.” And she’d text me back, very Ann-gressively, a thousand times. I’d verbified the dog sitter’s name because she wasn’t only aggressive on dates anymore. Her random texts to me about the dogs’ emotions and activities at any given moment were so numerous it bordered on harassment. Yesterday I’d learned that Tilly missed her human parents so much she was constipated, and Angus was humping the couch enough to wear a hole in it. Oh, and Ann thought it might be because of something the government put in the water.

“I don’t mean to put you out,” Morgan said, her tone entirely too apologetic.

“I said it’s no problem. I can handle it.”

“Bernie’s closer, but she didn’t pick up her phone.”

Did she even hear me? Did we have a faulty connection? Did she remember that the Retta rules didn’t apply to immediate family?

“I’d ask Wade,” she went on, “but he doesn’t text, hates Facebook messenger and refuses to get WhatsApp, so it’s hard to get ahold of him. Anyway, he’s so busy, I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

I could end this conversation right now by walking downstairs and handing him the laptop so Morgan would feel better about the fate of her dogs, timing be damned. But I really needed her to know I could handle this very simple task without any help or handholding.

“Thank you for the update, weather girl,” I said firmly. “I’ve got it under control. Now tell me what you saw today. In Italy.”

An expression I didn’t see that often stole across her face. It was soft and vulnerable, and it made me long to reach through the computer and wrap my arms around her.

“Morning fog on the lake. We visited the coffee shop again. Then we went to the church where they held her service, and the light through the stained glass was beautiful. I took pictures.”

“Can’t wait to see them.” My voice cracked.

Mom didn’t like funeral services. No one did, but she was particularly anti-cemetery and everything that came with it. The idea of people crying over her coffin in a church gave her the ick.

In her opinion, the body was only a vehicle. One that you took care of so you could get around comfortably as long as possible, then traded in or left at the junkyard while you went on to newer and better things.

“You wouldn’t bury your car and let people cry over it every year, would you?”

None of us had expected hers to give out suddenly while on vacation in another country. Who the hell expected something like that?

If I had, I might have put more thought into what we’d said to each other as I hurriedly drove her to the airport, paying more attention to the traffic and the time than to the last conversation we’d ever have face to face.

But I hadn’t, so in between the “Did you remember to packs” and the “I love yous” we’d had a familiar argument instead. I’dwanted her to be more careful, and she’d wanted me to take more chances.

That conversation still haunted me. Along with the voice message I hadn’t deleted on my phone from the day before she died.

“I had the greatest idea, sweetheart. Don’t say no until you hear me out.”

That was all I had left. That and her death certificate, the one they’d mailed to us along with the copy of the police report describing a woman collapsing in the road with a crumpled ferry schedule in her purse.

Morgan and I were now experts on the unique logistics involved in an overseas death in the family. For example, if you wanted your cremated mother back so you could honor her last wishes—which involved the ocean and possible fines for setting things on fire—it required an enormous amount of paperwork and middle-of-the-night phone calls over several weeks, as well as an in with either the consulate or a resident who happened to be a friend of the deceased. If you didn’t want the urn traveling by mail, you needed a passport so you could pick it up yourself. Which was what Morgan was doing in Lesa. What I should be doing with her.

“Are you okay?”

Shit, I was crying. I wiped my eyes and forced a smile to let her know everything was as fine as it was going to get. “Sure. Cruising tomorrow?”

“In the morning.” Her gaze flickered with worry, but she let it go. “We’re driving to Rome tonight and Natasha’s seeing us off. She’s been great. She and her husband took us to dinner at a hillside restaurant with a view of the lake that was absolutely breathtaking.”

“I ate donkey,” Gene called out, making me chuckle wetly while earning some reproachful side-eye from his wife.

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