“Hi, I heard there was good news?” I smiled, hoping they’d hear it in my voice.
We talked about his health for a bit, then mom brought up my earlier question.
“Whereabouts are you going next?” Dad asked.
“I’m going to go back to Illinois first.”
“Oh, working where your old school friend is now, right?” I’d talked to Mom about reconnecting with River while Dad was still in the hospital.
“Yes, River Lynch.” I beamed a little, feeling that squeeze of happiness inside my chest.
“I remember that boy,” Dad murmured. I couldn’t read his tone, and I hated that they didn’t like video calling, because I would’ve paid to see his expression right then.
“Yeah. He’s working as a nurse now. He’s a very kind and caring type of person.”
I swear I could hear Dad scoff, and then Mom murmured something to him.
“I’m sure it’s nice to have old friends around like that,” she said a bit too brightly.
Whatever was going on made me feel uncomfortable. Still, I couldn’t make myself ask them what was wrong. If they had negative feelings about River, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. There was nothing wrong with my friend, after all.
When I didn’t say anything, Mom continued, “Well, we’ll let you get back to work.”
“Yeah. Take care and call me if you need me, okay?”
They promised to do so, and I finished eating. I cleaned up meticulously and went upstairs to my room. The call, how they’d acted toward River’s name, niggled at the back of my mind. Something wasn’t right.
If I’d been reading this correctly—and I very well could be wrong—then my mom had been positive about River like she’d been before, but then Dad’s reaction had somehow messed that up. Why? Mom had nothing against River, so why would Dad?
I thought back a decade, trying to remember if anything had happened when we still used to visit each other’s houses. I couldn’t think of anything at all. Things had seemed okay.
Wait a minute. Hadn’t River seemed odd whenever I talked about my dad, too?
Unease filled my stomach. Why would they have a negative reaction to each other, even though both were trying to keep it under wraps?
I knew my parents and I knew when they were trying to hide something from me, like any other kid would. The last time I’d seen River face to face when we were kids was a couple of days before the time I saw him from the car. He’d come to my house, knocked on the door, and then my mom had…I couldn’t remember.
She didn’t want me to go out, but she also didn’t want anyone to come visit. She got upset if we needed maintenance on the house and a stranger came over. After she hesitantly let me go to college two hours away, Dad talked her into going to therapy. It helped, obviously, as she was pretty much back to her pre-Henry’s death self.
All I could remember now was that I’d opened the door and smiled at River, then Mom had come in from the kitchen, Dad had told me to go to my room and…I never saw River again. Except from the car a few days later.
Nothing about this made sense, and while I knew I could’ve called either of them to ask, I felt so unprepared by this revelation, that I needed more time to think. I’d rather talk to River face to face when I could anyway.
I pushed the thoughts out of my head and concentrated on work.
* * * *
As life tends to do, just as I wrapped up the editing work that would allow me to return to Twin Star, one of my favorite authors to work with needed help.
She was a single mom of three kids that were heading to college one after the other within the next five years, and she needed the nest egg her book deals would allow her. Now, there’d been water damage to their house, and the renovations would swallow much of the money she’d saved.
Her agent contacted me to ask if I could fix her latest novel as soon as possible, so that they could be sure the publisher wouldn’t turn it down. It wasn’t part of an ongoing contract, so I knew how they felt. Sometimes publishers said no at the most inopportune moments. Besides, if they could get a multi-book contract out of this, that would solve the whole problem for the time being.
I couldn’t say no, because I’d feel guilty for the rest of my life. That was even if I’d given the job to someone else, maybe someone more qualified. Aliya had some challenges with her brain stuff I understood better than many others, and she liked her comfort things. With editing, I happened to be one of those.
That’s how I ended up having to tell River I’d only be coming over sometime in August. I didn’t even have a date, because I wasn’t sure how long it would take to finish working on Aliya’s project.
At least I could do the work from my own room, because she was averse to strangers in her space and liked to work in solitude. Even though I had less input than I had while I worked with Lake, the manner of getting the job done was pretty much the same, except we did it through the screens of our computers. Then again Aliya was a seasoned author and Lake was a newbie, so it all made sense.
