Page 2 of Justice & Liberty

September smiled at her. “Hunter. How are you, dear?”

“I’m fine,” the woman—Hunter, apparently—said with a pained smile, like talking about herself was the last thing she wanted in the world. Then she turned to me, with intense ice-blue eyes that almost made me shiver. “I’m sorry about your mother. She was one of the finest people I’ve ever known, and South Liberty won’t be the same without her.”

I did not ask how she would know anything about South Liberty, this beautiful woman who did not fit into the tiny town I’d grown up in.

Well, she didn’t fit in any more than I did.

Any more than Mom had, really.

Not that South Liberty had ever really been a town centered on fitting in, in my experience.

None of that was an appropriate funeral conversation, though. “Thank you. I...I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here. Mom wasn’t?—”

“No,” she agreed, shaking her head. “A giant public spectacle wouldn’t have been her style. I just wanted to come and pay my respects. I can go if?—”

“No! No, it’s...it’s fine.” And suddenly, itwasfine. Because even if I didn’t know her, clearly, this woman had known my mother.

And being alone had never seemed less tempting.

“I appreciate you coming,” I said to them. “Both of you. I’m sure Mom would have too.”

I leaned down and picked up Hex, holding her tight against me as she burrowed into my chest and mewled. For a long time, we all stood there like that, heads down, considering my mother and her life.

The moment felt different, suddenly, even though I didn’t know Timothy or Hunter. I wasn’t alone. Other people had loved my mother, and now they were missing her too.

For the first time in the four days since I’d gotten the call, the world felt like maybe, someday, things could be right again.

2

I almost stoppedat the liquor store on the way home from the airport, but it felt rude to ask the cabbie to wait while I bought vodka.

I was sure he wouldn’t mind, but I’d been raised better than that.

Mom wouldn’t approve.

So I just gave him the address of my apartment building and hoped that we at least had a bottle of wine left from that dinner party in March.

Now, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. I don’t have a drinking problem. It was just that after the longest week of my life, I was ready to get home to my cat, the cushiest blanket I owned, my girlfriend Tanya, and a stiff drink.

Don’t tell Tanya, but I wanted them in just that order, too.

For a Los Angeles cab ride, it seemed to fly by in no time at all, and then the cabbie was nodding to me with a “night, miss” and driving off, leaving me in the parking lot with just my purse and my thoughts.

Oh, my luggage?

No, apparently it had gone to Toronto while I’d been flying from the Eastern Iowa Airport to LAX. The airline had promised that it would make its way back, and they’d call me when it arrived. A day or two, they said. A week on the outside.

I was half convinced I would never see it again, and only hoped that whoever found my favorite bra appreciated how awesome it was.

Fortunately for me, I always kept the important stuff in my purse: ID, phone, and keys. So I dug into the quilted bag, grabbing my keys as I climbed the stairs to my front door. I pulled them out, but the little black cat keychain they were attached to caught on the lip of the bag as I tugged, and the keys went tumbling to the ground.

And that was it.

That was all it took to make me cry: a day in the airport, luggage gone on vacation to Canada when I hadn’t had a vacation in years, and dropping my keys on the ground.

Well, that and the fact that my mother was dead.

Maggie Abernathy, the woman who’d given up so much to adopt and raise me, was gone.

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