The Pieces We Keep(123)
Audra smiled, unable to argue. “Well, considering I’ve given notice on the apartment, and I’d actually be employed in Boston, I’d say it’s the best option.”
“Oh, please. Hector would hire you back in a millisecond. I’m not kidding when I tell you the new girl’s weird. Her name should’ve been a clue. Cheyenne. What normal person is named after a city in Wyoming?”
Audra started tagging the pile of baseball caps. “I thought you were the one who recommended her.”
“Yeah, well. She had a good resume. There’s no way I could’ve known she’d talk to every patient in a coochie-coo baby voice.”
“Maybe it’s ... a phase she’s going through.”
“Like how she doesn’t shave? Legs I get, but armpits? That’s plain wrong.”
Although the vision did make Audra wince inside, she aimed for a solution: “So, just don’t look under her arms.”
“I’ve tried. It’s as easy as not watching a train wreck.” Tess picked up another CD and groaned. “Audra, really? You still own Cher’s Greatest Hits?”
Tess had taken the day off and was supposed to be pricing the music and books, but between commentary about work, the East Coast, and every eighties album in the stack, she wasn’t making much progress. Good thing they still had two days until the PTA’s community flea market. Hosted by Grace’s school, it was a convenient way to clear out anything Audra didn’t want to pack for the big move in three weeks, all while supporting a worthy cause.
“Mom?” Jack asked gently from the open door, his arm now free of a cast.
“Yeah, buddy? What is it?”
“Can I get a hundred coins?”
Grace called out from the living room couch: “It only costs two dollars! Then his penguin can buy a jumbo flat-screen TV for his igloo.”
Audra hated spending money on Internet games that trended like pop music hits. But, with her savings mostly intact, there was less need for frugality. Besides, she wasn’t about to discourage any of his positive social interactions.
“I suppose that’s fine,” she said to Jack. “Nothing else though, okay? We don’t need a whole penguin village living in my laptop.”
“ ’Kay,” he replied. Before he turned for the couch, he sported half a smile.
His nightmares were still a regular part of their routine, but Audra hoped the depletion of her anxiety would soon rub off on her son.
Tess waved a CD in the air. “Now, this one I’m keeping. I love the Go-Go’s.” She set the case aside and continued through the pile.
Audra laughed and began to organize board games that Jack had long outgrown. She was collecting cards for Candy Land when Tess spoke in a secretive tone.
“Hey, you have to tell me. Have you figured out anything about Sean?”
The question pulled Audra’s head up. She hadn’t told Tess about the hayloft, as she still hadn’t processed the encounter, and worried what had given her away. She answered in an equally hushed voice. “What about him?”
“Did you figure out why Jack wanted to find him at the festival?”
Internally Audra sighed, her thoughts redirected. “I’m not sure it happened like that. I think he just . . . recognized Sean from his picture in the paper.”
“Or ... ,” Tess drew out, “he could have been looking for him, but in a different way than you originally thought.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s like in that movie, Sleepless in Seattle. How the boy snuck off to New York, in order to meet some stranger, because he wanted his dad to have a new wife.”
Audra gasped at the revelation. “Ohhh, so you’re saying Jack wants me to have a new wife.”
Tess sat back and rolled her eyes. “Just think about it. When you consider what Jack told you about wanting two people together, maybe that’s his real message. That he wants you to be with someone—like Sean—because he wants you to be happy.”
So finally she can be with him. Granted, it could apply, but Audra doubted that was the case. It was no different from a tarot-card reading: Look hard enough and any prediction could be stretched to fit.
“Tess, if this is another strategy of yours, pushing a romance to keep us from moving, it won’t work. But I do appreciate the effort.”
With a grin, Audra returned to the board game pieces. She wasn’t about to share that Sean had called, asking to see her tomorrow. After all, there would be no chance for a relationship. That’s why she had suggested a coffee shop near the apartment. A public meeting place not only clarified expectations as platonic but would also reduce her own temptations for more. Her goal was to simplify. The day would be complicated enough, as it would be her first trip to her in-laws’ house since the case began.