Page 27 of The Woman in the Hollow
“She said I gotta do the spare bedrooms next.”
“Did she pick out the names for the grand babies yet?” Hazel teased.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a baby name book with pages flagged.”
“Is the family still trying to hook her up?”
“They are. Now even some of the aunts are involved, claiming that the girls need the advice of older women to know what my mom might be looking for.”
“How do you think your mom is going to react?” she asked as the kettle clicked off and I found a mug and the teabags.
“I honestly have no idea. Maybe if she knows we’re all okay with it, she would be interested. She can be pretty traditional and is probably worried about how we kids feel about her ‘tarnishing’ the memory of our father or something.”
“Were they really in love?”
“That’s… complicated, I feel, with the older generations. There was love, but it was more the comfortable kind of love than anything wildly passionate. And my father got more difficult as the years passed.”
It was likely the stress of the Family business, though I couldn’t tell Hazel that. Things hadn’t been as stable then as they were now. Those were the ugly days when there were bodiesfalling every couple of months, lots of funerals for the family to attend.
And as much as I liked to preserve the happy memories of my father, I had to admit that he’d been tenser, angrier and more distracted toward the end of his life. As much as the kids felt it, I had to imagine my mom got even more of it.
“What do you think of her dating?”
“I think, if she wants to, it would be good for her. It’s hard to be alone. And as much as our family is huge and someone is always around, she’s still alone a lot of the time.”
Though her dating did come with its own complications when it came to the Family, our business, and our need for trust and secrecy.
But that was a bridge we’d cross when and if we came to it.
“How are your hands?” I asked when she mixed some sugar into her tea and carefully picked up the mug with her fingertips.
“They burn a little. But it will fade. I’ve skinned my palms countless times. I can’t believe that just happened.”
“I’m sorry you had to be the one to see it.”
“Better me than one of the kids, I guess.”
“What were you doing working alone?” I asked, bothered by that little fact. Not because I didn’t trust her, but because it just wasn’t safe.
“Ant told me that a guest had thrown up in the woods. I went out there to clean it up. And I guess by the time I was done everyone else had wrapped up their stuff. I’m usually working late alone, though. Kind of micro-managing things.”
I had no idea who Ant was. But she’d hired three new employees since the last time I’d seen her to help the place run more smoothly.
“You were on puke duty? As an operations manager?”
“Felt mean to make the kids do it. They seemed like they all had plans to go out after work. I was taking the shovelfuls deeper into the woods when I caught sight of something.”
“We don’t have to go into that again if you want to try to put it aside for now.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” she said, shoulders relaxing a bit. “I should probably prepare myself for giving a statement, though.”
“Let me worry about that for you, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I found the guy. It’s not like you saw who did it, right?”
“Right. But…”
