“So worried. I call, and you are not here. No one knows where you are. We hear you are in the fire and nothing else.” Her accent was heavier than normal. She leaned back and tapped his cheeks with her soft hands.
The doors slid closed again, cocooning them in the small cab of the elevator.
“I got out okay.” His attempt at a reassuring smile clearly failed. “I’m fine.”
She studied him. “You are not fine,” she announced. “We will have tea. Talk.”
“I—”
“Enough.” She raised her palm to him. Teresa was apparently done with his avoidance. “We are family. Families have communication.”
Yes, she was through with his dodging. She had used the tone she’d perfected when he was a child and she was his nanny. That tone she’d used when he’d gotten caught stealing extra peanut butter cookies in the middle of the night. They’d had talks then, too.
But that was before his mother died. Before Teresa married his father, thrusting their betrayal into light.
She pushed the button for the first floor and gripped his hand as though he were a five-year-old again, ready to bolt.
“Your father, he is at the police station asking for information about you. He worries.” She dialed numbers on her cell phone and pressed it to her ear. “Hello? Yes, he is here. No…I don’t know… Yes, of course I will.” Her face softened. “Ti amo anch’io.”
Of course she loved his father. They’d been married for years. Still, hearing her say the words grated against his loyalty to his mother. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She clicked off the phone and shoved it in her purse as the elevator opened at the first floor.
“Where are we going?” He really should get back upstairs. Then again, if he were going upstairs so Lucy could put the final detail on her breakup with him, he might as well take his time.
“To talk.” She jerked her chin toward the hospital cafeteria. He followed. When they arrived, she ordered tea for herself. He ordered nothing, so she ordered coffee for him.
They sat in a corner booth. He stared at the black sludge in his cup.
“How could you do it to her?” he whispered to the sludge.
Teresa lifted his chin with her fingers, so their eyes met. “Do what? To who?”
“You and dad, together. How could you do that to my mom?”
She shook her head, her thick black curls bouncing with the movement. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Do what to Patricia?”
“The messing around.” He glanced down again.
She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Mess around? I don’t understand this?”
“Your affair with my father.”
There, it was out.
Teresa gasped. “Affare.” Her face gentled. “This is what you think? This is why you do not come home? William, look at me.” He did, and she continued. “We did not. Never. Your mother was my friend. The best one. I would never…”
They were silent for a moment.
“We were with her when she died. Your father, he struggled with this, and he worked all the time. It is a hard thing to let someone go. I know this. From my first husband when he passed. It took time, but your father, he came home, and we were both there in the big house. We found comfort in each other. Comfort turned to love.” Her dense accent thickened.
“You were with Mom? While she was dying?” He had to know she wasn’t alone in those hours.
Teresa’s eyes misted again, and she squeezed his hand across the table. “With her when she died.”
She had been there.
William swallowed the perpetual guilt at his absence when his mom had needed him most. “Tried to get back. I didn’t have enough time.”
“She knew. Your mother was very smart. She understand. That’s why she wrote the letter for you, so you know she understand.”
