Kelly - 04 - Remember Me, Irene by Jan Burke

Author:Jan Burke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781436113670
Published: 1996-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

21

DID YOU MAIL a set of photographs to Ben Watterson?”

“Who?”

“The president of the Bank of Las Piernas.”

Before she could answer, Frank came into the kitchen. He was dressed for work, which reminded me that I needed to get myself into gear.

“Good morning,” she greeted him.

“Good morning,” he answered, and gave my shoulder a squeeze as he walked over to the coffeemaker.

He looked between us as he poured a cup of coffee, then asked, “Are you going into work today, Irene?”

“Yes, although I might go in a little late. June, what are your plans for the day?”

“I guess the first thing I’ll need to do is rent a car.”

“If you only need to get around town—”

“No, I have things to do here, but I need to get back to Riverside to…to make arrangements for the funeral and so on.”

No one said anything.

“Charles offered to drive back down here and pick me up,” she said. “But he works so hard and was up so late last night, I just hate to make him come all the way back out here. And the bus takes twice as long as driving. Besides, what it would cost to take cabs around town and then take the Greyhound home, I’d just as soon rent a car.”

“There’s a rental place downtown,” I said. “I can drop you off on the way to work.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you have any other friends in Las Piernas?” Frank asked.

“Other friends?” She laughed softly and shook her head. “No, not now. I moved away from here just after Lucas started college. Our old neighborhood doesn’t even exist anymore. I might be able to find some of the people I knew from the church. Some of those people might still be around here somewhere. I could find out where the church moved to, see if any of my old friends are still in the congregation. But I haven’t seen any of them in so long, I wouldn’t even know who to ask for.”

“What do you mean, your old neighborhood doesn’t exist?” I asked.

“I mean, you go to look for it, you won’t find it. It’s gone. You might find a lot of empty buildings and some vacant lots. That’s all. We used to live in a big old hotel that had been turned into apartments. The landlord let it get so run-down, I hated that place. It wasn’t the worst by any means, but it wasn’t where I wanted my children to live. Lord, how I wanted to move out of that old place.”

“You worked as a teacher then?”

“Yes, but that was before I had a permanent position. We moved a lot when the children were small. My late husband was a good man, but he had trouble holding down a job. And he wasn’t the money-saving kind, if you know what I mean. We never had the ends to pay the rent, nothing. By the time we were living here in Las Piernas—must have been when Lucas was six or seven years old—my husband’s health began to fail.

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