“I’ve been told.”
She smiled, then turned toward the window.
Neither of us knew it yet, but the night that began with a broken car had already changed something between us.
We just weren’t ready to admit it.
At 3:18 a.m., Karen’s phone began vibrating.
Michael.
She stared at the screen until it stopped.
Then it started again.
“You should answer,” I said.
“Why?”
“Maybe he wants to explain.”
She looked at me with such disbelief that I almost laughed.
“Alex, if a man needs twenty-two years to explain why he doesn’t love me, I don’t think another phone call will help.”
“Fair point.”
She switched off the phone.
A few minutes later, mine rang.
Daniel.
I answered.
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“At a diner.”
“With my mother?”
I glanced across the table.
Karen raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Is she okay?”
I looked at the woman sitting opposite me. She was holding a coffee cup between both hands, staring at the steam as if she had discovered something important inside it.
“She will be.”
Daniel sighed.
“Dad called me. They’re getting divorced.”
“I figured.”
“He says it’s been over for years.”
Karen’s expression hardened.
I covered the phone.
“Do you want to talk to him?”
She shook her head.
I returned to the call.
“She doesn’t want to talk right now.”
“Tell her I love her.”
“I will.”
“And Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for going to get her.”
There was something in his voice that made my chest tighten.
“Always.”
I hung up.
Karen looked at me.
“What did he say?”
“That he loves you.”
She closed her eyes.
For a moment, I thought she might cry again.
Instead, she took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders.
“I need to stop waiting for Michael to decide what happens to my life.”
It was the first time she had said anything that sounded like a decision rather than a wound.
I smiled.
“Now you’re talking.”
She pointed a finger at me.
“Don’t encourage me. I might become difficult.”
“Karen, you raised Daniel. I know you’re already difficult.”
She laughed so loudly that the waitress glanced over.
And for the first time in twenty-two years, Karen Mercer seemed to be laughing for herself.
When I dropped her at her sister’s house just before dawn, she paused with one hand on the passenger door.
“Thank you for tonight.”
“You’ve thanked me about six times.”
“I might need to thank you seven.”
“There’s a loyalty program. Your eighth ride is free.”
