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“Lonely? All their friends’ kids were already in college by the time I was born. I don’t have any cousins. Honestly, the guys were my family growing up. I did everything with them. Especially Mike.”

“Huh. Ever think of marrying Janessa?” She gave me a playful look.

“Uh, no.”

“Why? Not your type?”

“She isn’t, actually.”

“What is your type, then?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know what you like? Come on.”

I knew what I liked.

I changed the subject. “Do you want to hear my two truths and a lie?” I asked.

“No. I want to hear what you were going to tell me about your mom before Woofarine did murder on the trail.”

I scoffed.

“So your dad’s gone,” she said. “And your mom died recently. And you’re having a hard time processing it. Did you get to say goodbye to her?”

I stared out ahead of us. “I got the call and I went out there. She was living in Florida. Spent a few weeks with her while she was in hospice. I was with her when she passed.”

“Was it unexpected?”

“It was.”

“How did she die?”

I paused. “Liver failure.”

She nodded slowly. “It’s not a peaceful way to go I take it?”

“No. It isn’t.”

They were pulling liters of fluid from her abdomen. She was covered in bruises, jaundiced and in pain, and her whole body itched. I didn’t want to tell Larissa that. I didn’t want to tell anyone that. I wished I didn’t know it either.

“I’ve been dealing with nightmares,” I said. “Not really sleeping.”

“She couldn’t get a liver transplant?” she asked.

“She wasn’t a candidate.”

I dropped it after that. I guess I wasn’t ready to talk about it to the degree that I thought I was.

Thunder rolled overhead.

I looked at the sky. “Was it supposed to rain today?”

“I only checked the morning. I didn’t think we’d still be out here past lunch,” she said.

“Let’s speed up. Maybe we can outwalk it.”

We couldn’t.