Page 75 of Finally Mine
She heard the whispers of the crowd. Benevolence loved to witness a person’s business. Now, they were getting a front row seat to the ugliness that had been her life for ten long years.
“You sound like your son,” Gloria said sadly. “I feel sorry for you.”
A police cruiser pulled up to the curb, and Ty climbed out. “There a problem here?” he asked.
“I think we’re done here,” Gloria told Ty.
She turned her back on Linda and walked away, shoulders hunched.
“I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” Linda announced to Ty.
“No one’s sayin’ you did, Mrs. Diller,” Ty said, in full-on authority mode.
Gloria slipped through the crowd, avoiding eye contact. One pitying look, and she’d break like fine china on concrete.
“Gloria,” Aldo called after her. But she kept walking.
He caught her on the steps to her apartment. “Say something,” he said, reaching for her hand.
She let him have it because she wanted some sense of kindness to warm the cold within. She knew what she needed., She only had to ask. And trust.
“Do you want to come upstairs and drink tea and watchPride and Prejudicewith me? Because I need a friend.”
He grabbed her hands. “Is it the Colin Firth version or the Keira Knightly one?”
She felt the ghost of a smile play on her lips. “I have both.”
42
Akaleidoscope of color and pattern welcomed Aldo when he crossed the threshold into Gloria’s apartment. As many times as he’d walked by in the late hours of the night, he’d never imagined her home to look like this.
The couch, the color of ripe eggplant, was nearly buried under a mound of throw pillows in every shade of green imaginable. The dining room table, a scarred and rickety find, was accessorized with a tablescape of fat pillar candles. She’d grouped bold art prints and framed family photos on the walls, which were painted a rich gray-blue.
The throw rug was orange and white that picked up the tangerines in the two upholstered chairs pushed under the bow window. They should have been hideous with their floral print and tufted backs, but somehow, as part of the whole, they were charming.
The environment, the sheer, colorful happiness of it took the edge off the anger he was riding from the confrontation in the park.
The door to what Aldo assumed was the bedroom was cracked open, and his curiosity piqued. But she had asked him upstairs for comfort. And not the naked kind.
“You don’t think it’s too much?” She worried her lower lip between her teeth looking at the room as if she’d never seen it before.
He thought of his own beige walls waiting for a paintbrush and personality. “Not at all. You did all this? It looks professional.”
She brightened for him like the sun, and he vowed to do that again and again just to see that pride push out the shame in her eyes.
“You’re forgiven. You don’t have to kiss my ass,” she teased nervously.
“I’m serious. It feels like you in here.”
She studied him curiously for a minute. “So. Um. Ready for that tea?” she asked.
He flashed her a smile. “So ready.”
Gloria took a step back and smacked into the small table inside the door, sending a stack of mail flying to the floor. “Sorry. I’m flustered,” she said, fluttering her hands.
Aldo bent to pick up the envelopes. The one on top caught his eye.Mailed from a state correctional institution.He hadn’t yet calmed down from the confrontation in the park, and the anger sparked back to life. It was Glenn. He knew it viscerally.
She was already heading toward the shoebox kitchen without any clue as to the ticking time bomb she’d left behind.
