“So you are in the mafia.”
“You already knew that, sweetheart.” The endearment slips out too easily. “I’m the kingpin of Woodford.”
She gulps, and stares at the flour as she puts it through a sieve. “Were they trying to actually kill you, or was it some sort of warning?”
Smart. “The same question has been going through my head. I’m not sure. I think they didn’t mean to kill me, exactly. Perhaps more indifferent to whether I lived or died. But it backfired. The kingpin of Loughton was killed. His sons have taken over, so now we have more uncertainty.”
“Is that what happens with mafias? The sons take over?”
“When a kingpin dies?” I nod. “Usually.”
“Is Jack your son?” she asks tentatively, as though asking about a taboo.
I bark with laughter. “No, but he probably would take over Woodford if Loughton had their way and killed me. He’s a good second-in-command. I have no sons. And I don’t have daughters, or a wife, or any sort of person like that.”
“And your parents?”
I suppose she’s asking if my father is dead, and yes, but I’d rather not tarnish her opinion of me by explaining how and why they died.
“I’m alone.” The statement echoes uncomfortably. It’s true, but I wish I hadn’t said it.
“I am too.” She shrugs, embarrassed. “Kinda. My mum’s dead and my dad and I don’t talk anymore.”
From the way her gaze has slid away from me, that’s not an invitation to ask about her family, so I leave it and ask something else. “Why did you become a nurse?”
She mixes the cake batter with a silicone implement, and I think for a second that she won’t reply. Her eyes have gone even sadder.
“It was my mum. She spent a lot of time in the hospital when I was teenager, especially. And I went with her. I liked the nurses. They were always the ones who had a couple of extra minutes to explain things, or a little tip, or insight. They had knowledge, but they weren’t stuck up like a doctor.”
“Your dad didn’t go with her?” I catch hold of the first relevant point she said.
“No.” That’s a whole sentence. She’s good at that, I notice. There’s a finality and a length to that small word when she says it that leaves no question about what she means.
“Why did she go to hospital?”
“She had Crohn’s disease. When she had flare-ups, I’d visit her, and even when she was better, she needed regular treatments.” Callie smiles sadly. “I cared for her at home, too, so I had experience to show when I applied to be a nurse.”
I note the past tense, and the heaviness that has descended onto her.
“What happened?” I’d like to say my voice was gentle, but I didn’t achieve that. The suspicion is too sharp.
“Sometimes the visits were for her Crohn’s disease, and other times she was very clumsy.” She says it with a neutral inflection, as though controlling herself.
“Clumsy,” I repeat thoughtfully. “I don’t believe that.”
She bites her lip. “I don’t let myself think about it much, because she’s gone now, and there’s nothing I can do about it. She died when I was seventeen. I moved out of home, and got onto a nursing course as soon as I turned eighteen.”
“Away from your father.” It’s not a question.
She nods as she pours the cake mix into the last of the tins, and smooths the top. “Yes.”
She looks me straight in the eyes.
Such a brave little thing.
“He hit her,” I state baldly. The anger is building up inside me. It was a spark at first, but the more I see, the more the flames are fanned.
“I didn’t see it. And she never told me.” Callie turns and slides the neat trays into the oven, the fan humming.
