Like it Never Happened by Jeff Hoffmann

Author:Jeff Hoffmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER

23

Miss Katie’s

TOMMY IS EARLY and Emma is late. Emma is always late. It was her idea to meet at Miss Katie’s, but it feels perfect to Tommy. When the kids were young, Tommy would take the three of them to the little diner down on 19th Street whenever Maggie was fighting through a tough trial. It gave her a few hours to sleep or catch up on work without the kids underfoot. Miss Katie’s, with its speckled linoleum, sticky vinyl booths, and aproned waitresses, became their place. They usually perched on the metal stools along the yellow and red breakfast counter, but today demands a degree of privacy that the counter won’t offer. Emma’s tardiness gives Tommy more time to think through what he’ll say to her, time to craft the gentle questions that might help him learn what’s going on without scaring her off. It gives him time to make sure that he doesn’t act like Maggie did the last time they shared a meal with Emma.

Before Emma disappeared, the three of them had gone to dinner at the Olive Garden near Marquette on the first Monday of every month. Tommy met Emma for lunch often, so mostly the dinners were for Maggie. Tommy was there to translate for them and to smother the flames when the brushfires started.

“How’s Kyle?” Maggie asked over salad, after the usual interrogation about classes and roommates and basketball games.

Tommy glanced sharply at Maggie because of the way her voice landed hard on Kyle’s name.

“He’s fine,” Emma said, picking the onions out of her salad.

She answered in the same bored monotone that she answered all of Maggie’s questions, because she didn’t hear what Tommy heard. Of course, Tommy was tuned to it, because he and Maggie had argued about Kyle just the week before. He knew about the file Maggie had brought home from work. He thought that they’d ended that argument on the same page, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

“You have plans for spring break?” Tommy asked quickly, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground. He worked to catch Maggie’s eye, but she was sorting the onions from her own salad.

Maggie spoke again before Emma could answer his question. “Is he staying out of trouble?”

Emma looked up, fastened her eyes on her mother. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Maggie—”

“Let her answer, Dad.” Emma’s lips settled into a thin straight line, just like Maggie’s did when she was angry.

Maggie continued to pick out the onions. “It just seems important that he keeps his nose clean,” she said. “After what happened in high school.”

Confusion edged in alongside Emma’s anger. “What are you talking about?”

“Maggie—” Tommy said.

“I thought that you knew.” Maggie finally looked up from her plate. “I just assumed that he told you about his arrest.”

Emma went very still.

“Goddamn it, Maggie,” Tommy said.

“What?” Maggie said, trying and failing to sound sincere. “I thought that she knew.”

“What are you talking about?” Emma asked again, her voice softer, crackling with uncertainty.

Maggie turned back to Emma.

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