Memories of the Lost: A Novel by Barbara O'Neal

Author:Barbara O'Neal [O'Neal, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2024-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jon arrived, looking shiny clean and rested in a green activewear hoodie and expensive jeans.

“You look good,” she said.

“Thank you.”

She picked up her coat but dropped it on the floor. Picked it up, then dropped her keys; picked them up, but a lipstick rolled out of her bag. “Damn it!” She grabbed it before it could disappear under the couch.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Maybe it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.”

She gave him a look. “If it was you, would you let them lie?”

“Girl, I’d poke them until they woke up and started barking, for sure. But I’ve also never had anxiety so bad that I almost ended up in the hospital.”

“Fair enough.” She tucked everything in her purse and shoved her arms through her coat sleeves, pulling hair out and flinging it over her shoulders. “I have to find out what she was lying about. Why. Maybe that’s the whole reason I’m screwed up in the first place, that she had some dark secret she never told me.”

Solemnly, he nodded. Touched her shoulder. “Let’s go, then.”

When they were well underway and out of the Manhattan traffic, he said, “It is weird that she never told you about this other girl.”

Tillie chewed her lip. “Maybe it was just too hard for her to talk about?”

“So she just never told you that you had a sister? That’s a stretch.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot.” She sighed. “But there was a lot that was not exactly . . . ordinary about her.”

He touched her hand. One of the things that made them friends was being able to make space for the weird parental baggage they each carried. His very religious single mother was 100 percent sure he would burn in hell for being gay, but she wrote him letters every week and wanted him home at holidays. Tillie’s mother had been utterly devoted and supportive, but she wouldn’t travel, ever, and she had what she called her “fits,” periods when she didn’t seem to be completely in contact with this world.

Trees along the road were glazed with green, and they passed a field with a pair of frolicking lambs. Tillie felt a whisper of recognition, a flash of déjà vu before it evaporated. The music on the stereo was very mellow jazz that unwound her nerves, and she let the tension go.

Jon said, “By the way, did you know your boy is a rock star?”

“My boy?” She echoed. “You mean Liam? He’s a meditation teacher.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “A rock star meditation leader. Google him.”

She frowned, thinking of when she’d asked permission to paint him, and he had been unwilling or unable to give it. He’d also requested that they keep their connection separate from his work. “I don’t want to. It’s not like he’s a serial killer or something.”

“You really haven’t googled him?” Jon looked askance. “Who just goes in uninformed these days? And why would you?”

She didn’t want to admit that he’d asked her not to.

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