His situation sounded familiar.
“It’s strange to get your big break based on something so horrible,” he continued. “But you must know about that—what kind of stories do you cover in Chicago?”
“I’m on the police beat, so probably the same kind of junk you see: abuse, rape, murder.” I wanted him to know I had horror stories, too. Foolish, but I indulged. “Last month it was an eighty-two-year-old man. Son killed him, then left him in a bathtub of Drano to dissolve. Guy confessed, but, of course, couldn’t come up with a reason for doing it.”
I was regretting using the word junk to describe abuse, rape, and murder. Disrespectful.
“Sounds like we’ve both seen some ugly things,” Richard said.
“Yes.” I twirled my drink, had nothing to say.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
He studied me. The bartender switched the house lights to low, an official signal of nighttime hours.
“We could catch a movie sometime.” He said it in a conciliatory tone, as if an evening at the local cineplex might make everything work out for me.
“Maybe.” I swallowed the rest of my drink. “Maybe.”
He peeled the label off the empty beer bottle next to him and smoothed it out onto the table. Messy. A sure sign he’d never worked in a bar.
“Well, Richard, thank you for the drink. I’ve got to get home.”
“It was nice talking with you, Camille. Can I walk you to your car?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You okay to drive? I promise, I’m not being a cop.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Have good dreams.”
“You too. Next time, I want something on record.”
Alan, Adora, and Amma were all gathered in the living room when I returned. The scene was startling, it was so much like the old days with Marian. Amma and my mother sat on the couch, my mother cradling Amma—in a woolen nightgown despite the heat—as she held an ice cube to her lips. My half sister stared up at me with blank contentment, then went back to playing with a glowing mahogany dinner table, exactly like the one in the next room, except that it was about four inches high.
“Nothing to worry about,” Alan said, looking up from a newspaper. “Amma’s just got the summer chills.”
I felt a shot of alarm, then annoyance: I was sinking back into old routines, about to run to the kitchen to heat some tea, just like I always did for Marian when she was sick. I was about to linger near my mother, waiting for her to put an arm around me, too. My mother and Amma said nothing. My mother didn’t even look up at me, just nuzzled Amma in closer to her, and cooed into her ear.
“We Crellins run a bit delicate,” Alan said somewhat guiltily. The doctors in Woodberry, in fact, probably saw a Crellin a week—both my mother and Alan were sincere overreactors when it came to their health. When I was a child, I remember my mother trying to prod me with ointments and oils, homemade remedies and homeopathic nonsense. I sometimes took the foul solutions, more often refused. Then Marian got sick, really sick, and Adora had more important things to do than coaxing me into swallowing wheat-germ extract. Now I had a pang: all those syrups and tablets she proffered, and I rejected. That was the last time I had her full attention as a mother. I suddenly wished I’d been easier.
The Crellins. Everyone here was a Crellin but me, I thought childishly.
“I’m sorry you’re sick, Amma,” I said.
“The pattern on the legs is wrong,” Amma whined abruptly. She held the table up to my mother, indignant.
“You’ve got such eyes, Amma,” Adora said, squinting at the miniature. “But it’s barely noticeable, baby. Only you will ever know.” She smoothed back Amma’s damp hairline.
“I can’t have it wrong,” Amma said, glaring at it. “We have to send it back. What’s the point of getting it special-made if it’s not right?”
“Darling, I promise you, you can’t even tell.” My mother patted Amma’s cheek, but she was already standing up.
“You said it would all be perfect. You promised!” Her voice wavered and tears started dripping down her face. “Now it’s ruined. The whole thing is ruined. It’s the dining room—it can’t have a table that doesn’t match. I hate it!”
“Amma…” Alan folded his paper and went to put his arms around her, but she wrenched away.
“This is all I want, it’s all I asked for, and you don’t even care that it’s wrong!” she was screaming through her tears now, a full-blown tantrum, her face mottled in anger.