Page 95 of Secondhand Smoke
So, Nell did the same.
She scanned through the options, half listening and giving the occasional smile as her mother spoke about some of the exciting things happening in her life in between comments on the specials of the week.
Every now and then, her mom mentioned things Nell didn’t know about.
She had no idea her mother had joined a Jazzercise or that she was volunteering at the garden center on Saturdays.
The more her mom spoke, the less focused the menu became.
Nell had never noticed how disconnected she’d become from her parents. While her world had stilled and locked her in place, they’d never stopped turning.
Had she expected them to stop and wait for her too?
As her mother said something about what flowers she would love to plant in front of the house next spring, someone—no doubt the server—approached out of the corner of Nell’s eye.
Just as her mother started going on about the different varieties of peonies, her voice cut off.
The sudden freeze in monologue drew Nell out of her mind.
She looked up, finding both of her parents with odd expressions.
Her father had his pastor’s smile on, and her mother donned a nervous grin. Neither of them were looking at her.
“Emilia,” Nell’s mom said. “It’s been so long.”
As Nell met the server’s eyes, her slow-turning world froze moments after creaking to life and the blood drained from her body, leaving her a pale stone statue.
The woman standing next to them with a pad in hand and an apron tied around her waist had long wavy hair and tan skin.
Nell couldn’t tell if the entire restaurant had stopped talking or if she’d gone deaf from the ringing in her ears.
Tremors immediately took over her hands, and that sickly familiar bile rose in her throat.
It’d been little more than seven months since Nell last saw Emilia Francisco, but the woman had aged ten years.
Dark circles ringed her eyes, heavy wrinkles lined her forehead, and the light in her brown eyes had dulled.
Nell knew that look all too well.
The effects of lingering grief were a good friend to her now, a companion in the mirror.
And no one could understand it better than her friend’s mother.
Minnie’s mother, Emilia, was alone.
She’d been a single mother to a single child.
In a second, she’d become a single person.
No husband, no children. No one.
Because of you.
Emilia wasn’t a server. She was a nurse. How could she be here?
The woman opened her mouth, but Nell couldn’t stand to hear her voice. Minnie and her mother shared the same laughter, the same voice.
Nell panicked and stood from her seat, the chair screeching, and she pushed from the table. She mumbled three words—“I’m so sorry”—under her breath and ran from the dim candle-lit table into the evening breeze.
