Same tension under the surface.
Only now, her two sisters and younger brother were not here to run interference.Nicole slipped off her heels, sighing as her aching feet touched the cool tile.
Though her parents loved one another deeply, her father’s health had frightened them and brought her home.All her other siblings were married with children.She’d been the obvious one to take care of them.
“You’re late,” her mother said without looking up.“Dinner’s almost ready.”
Nicole dropped her briefcase by the hallway table and leaned against the doorway to the kitchen.“Work ran long.Pre-trial motions.”
Her mother glanced at her then, eyes sharp behind her glasses.“That big murder case you mentioned?”
Nicole nodded, brushing a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear.“Yeah.It’s going to be high profile.”
Her mother stirred the onions, then added a scoop of shredded chicken to the pan.“So… what do you want?The man to get off?”
Nicole smiled faintly.“Just letting you know why I’m late.”
She sighed.“I still believe he killed his girlfriend because she was pregnant.”
Silence hung for a moment.
Then, softly, she said, “I saw Tripp today.”
The spatula froze mid-stir.
In the den, the sound of the TV clicked off.
Nicole didn’t move.
Her mother set the spatula down with exaggerated care and turned, her expression unreadable.
“What do you mean?”she asked, too casually.“You saw him where?”
Nicole tilted her head.“He’s the defense attorney.On the Reddick case.His law firm is trying to get this man off of murder one.”
Her mother blinked.“Oh.”
Justoh.
Nicole crossed her arms.“That’s it?He looked mighty handsome.”
“What do you want me to say?”her mother replied, turning back to the stove.“It’s been twenty years.People move on.I keep waiting for you to move on.To find another man to love.”
She’d dated all through college, always measuring each man against Tripp.Once, she’d even gone so far as to sleep with someone, hoping it might change something inside her, hoping she’d feel different.But afterward—nothing.Empty.If anything, she’d hated the experience, hated herself for trying to replace what could never be replaced.
“I have moved on,” she said.“It’s just I don’t trust men.They lie.”
In the other room, Francisco shifted in his chair but didn’t say a word.That was his role, always watching, rarely speaking.
“Not all of us,” he said.
“I know, Papa.Momma got the best,” she said.
He spoke even less since he had the debilitating heart attack that had him retiring from fishing.He’d even sold his boat and was collecting disability.
Nicole walked farther into the kitchen, her pulse quickening.
How would her mother react to what Tripp had told her today?
