“Fantastic.” We bring the plates out, along with the focaccia and a couple of beers from her fridge, and settle down at the dining room table.
“Nonna taught me how to make this dish when I was very young,” she says, her voice filled with tenderness. “Sometimes she’d sneak it into the hospital so that she could fatten me up after chemo.”
I close my eyes, savoring my first bite of creamy, lemony chicken. When I open them, Josie is watching me with delight.
“Holy Gordon Fecking Ramsay, this is incredible,” I tell her. “In my kitchen, things get elevated if I add a splash of chippy sauce.”
Josie laughs. “I don’t think I have that. Though, I gotta say, Scotland isn’t, um, exactly famous for its food. Is it bad to assume the bar’s kinda low?”
“Aye, that’s my country you’re rippin’ into. Just you wait till I serve you up my famous boiled cabbage and haggis surprise,” I tell her. “You already know we have the best tatties around. And my homemade custard’s so thick it doubles as a weapon.”
She laughs, and we keep the conversation easy, clinking beers when I finish a plate of seconds. It’s not until we’ve pushed away from the table and resettled on the couch that the lightness fades from her face, and I sense that something is going on and it has nothing to do with me. Josie’s mind is elsewhere.
“What’s weighing on your heart, lass?” I ask her, smoothing her hair out of her face. No recording devices, haptic suits, or VR headsets between us. Just Josie and me, side by side, talking because we want to. “Has it got anything to do with why I haven’t heard from you this week?”
She nods. I watch as she tries to compose herself, her cheerful mask fully slipping away to reveal the vulnerability beneath. She tucks one leg under the other before she turns her full attention to me.
“You can tell me anything, Josie,” I say softly, and reach for her hand. Her voice wavers as she begins.
“It’s complicated—and I don’t even know the whole story. I went to see my nonna earlier to get some answers. But the nurses keep saying she has been having a rough time—a bad stomach flu—and to try again tomorrow.”
I nod, remembering the snippets she’s told me about her nonna, who sounds like she was the kind of granny I always wished I had.
“It’s my mother. I think she’s been keeping a secret. Something she’s carried for a long time.” Her eyes fill with tears, and she looks away, blinking them back as she struggles to find words. “While I was growing up, Mom wasobsessedwith making me healthy. Not her fault. I was ridiculously sick for so long. But she dragged me to all these extreme doctors, including this one guy, Dr. Don. He was a total quack, and I’m pretty sure at least some of his so-called cures did more harm than good.”
“There’s always someone happy to make a pound off of someone else’s pain.”
“Yep.” Her laugh is short, bitter. “And looking back, I realize my mom might have had her own serious problems,” she says, her words tumbling out in a rush. I want to pull her into my lap, shield her from every dark thing she’s about to say, but I don’t. I let her speak. “In fact, I think she was a patient at Ravenswood back when I was a baby. She never told me, and neither did my nonna. And I’m not sure she ever got fully well.”
The mention of Ravenswood hangs in the air between us. I already sensed that Josie’s mum was unhinged, sure as a cow loves grass. But I also know that Josie loves her.
“That must have been hard to learn,” I say, reaching for her, wishing I could wash away her pain. “I can’t imagine.”
Except that I can. My own childhood was a proper stew of dysfunction, where the people most dangerous to me were the ones who kept me closest.
“It always felt like her love was wrapping around me too tight, like I couldn’t breathe,” she confesses, tears streaking in ribbons down her face. I brush them away with the back of my hand,wishing like hell I’d brought a handkerchief. “I just wish I’d known she was fighting her own demons. She was all I had—but maybe deep down I always understood something was off with her? You know how you can know something but also reallynotwant to know it at the same time?”
“Aye,” I say, and a list unfurls in my mind. Da’s business. Hamish’s predilections. Even now, sometimes a nonnegotiable truth stares me in the face that’s too hard for me to accept. Perhaps…the extent of how much I care about Josie.
A molten wave of anger surges through me at the thought of Josie’s mother doing anything—no matter how well-intentioned—to bonny little Josie. She dragged that tiny, curly-haired, trusting girl through so much trouble.
Where were the other adults? Where was the law?
“I wish I could have been there for you,” I say, and tuck my arm around her shoulders to draw her closer to me. She feels small and delicate, her cheek the lightest whisper on my chest.
“You’re here now,” she says, but the fury settles in my bones. If the dickless bastard Dr. Don is still breathing, he won’t be for long. I imagine storming into his dodgy little office, fueled by righteous fury. I see him sitting there in his leather chair, oblivious. The first punch will wipe the smirk off his face and send him sprawling back. I’ll get Strike’s knife set to slice him as neatly as deli ham. Fuck him and the empty hope he sold to his victims. Fuck all the physical and psychic pain he inflicted. I will take him out sure as—
“Axe?” Josie has turned to look up at me. “Your heart is pounding. Are you all right?”
I force myself to shake off the fantasy, to focus on the girl in my arms, the only thing that matters.
“Aye,” I say gruffly. I can’t change what’s happened. Can’t goback and protect Josie from those people. But I can be here for her now, for whatever comes next. I want to tell her these things and more, but the words catch in my throat. “Of course I’m good, Ginger Snap. And so are you.”
Her lips part, but I press on. “You’re healthy and strong, Josie, and I believe in you. Getting your answers will hurt, but you’ll face it head-on, like you always do. And you won’t have to do it alone. I’ll be right here by your side.”
“Thanks.” She lets out a shaky laugh. “This isn’t what you bargained for when I said I’d make you dinner.”
“What are you talking about? That was the best Chicka-lemon-deedee whatchacallit I’ve ever had.” I pull her onto my lap.
