Page 20 of The Luminosity of Loriana Harper

Pretty words, but such pain beneath them. “I’m sorry about your dad.” Always an awkward thing to say.

“Thanks.” He swept a crumb off the table. “We weren’t close. Now, my mom…” He winced. “We were much closer. Or at least that’s how I remember it. She died when I was eight. She was pregnant, and something went wrong, and the baby didn’t survive. She came home, but things were never the same. She cried a lot and didn’t start living again. My dad would yell at her, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of it. Eventually I guess she’d had enough. She killed herself.”

Oh Jesus.

“And I guess, well.” He cleared his throat. “My dad wasn’t the warmest of guys when I was growing up, but I think that loss broke him. He blamed the doctors, the system, the Man. And I think there was plenty of blame to go around. I didn’t understand the specifics, but I did remember my mother pleading with her doctor on the phone when she was pregnant—telling the guy something was wrong. Eventually she went to the hospital, but by then it was too late. When she came home without a baby, I understood. I might’ve been eight, but I got it. We never talked about it. Only when I was clearing out my stuff for the move to California did I find out it’d been a baby girl.”

Unbidden, pain ripped through her. She hadn’t known anything like this kind of loss. Her loss had been bad enough, but she hadn’t faced demons like these. On instinct, she reached out to place a hand on Mitch’s. She hadn’t asked permission, and it’d been within his rights to rebuff her, but he didn’t.

He turned his hand so their palms touched. They locked gazes. His eyes shimmered, but he didn’t cry. Not like she had last night, anyway.

“Again, I’m sorry for what you went through. That must’ve been traumatizing.”

“More than twenty-years ago now.” His smile was tentative—and a little watery—but it was there. “Life throws us some funny curveballs. We think we’re headed in one direction but then something changes, and we find ourselves starting over again.”

Circling back to why he was in Mission City. His logic for choosing the town was sound, but he wasn’t sharing everything.

Nosy. You’re being nosy. Look how much he’s already given you.

She wasn’t always good at backing off.

“You’re Mission City born and bred?”

She’d let him change the subject. “Yes. Went to the University of British Columbia for an undergrad degree in English literature and then did my Master of Library Sciences. I did a year at the Carnegie Library in downtown Vancouver before a position opened up here, and I moved home.”

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “You worked in the Downtown East Side? Seriously?”

“Uh, seriously.” She folded the paper wrapper. “I wanted to do some good, and I think I did, but—as you know—life is rough down there. I tried, but I was just one in a long line of do-gooders. Maybe if I’d stayed longer, I might’ve had an impact, but fighting that kind of poverty and deprivation is exhausting. I was relieved when the opportunity to come home arose. I leapt at the chance and haven’t looked back. I donate to several charities working down there, but I don’t go back.” Her cheeks heated. “I don’t even drive down Hastings Street. I use First Avenue and cut up Québec Street.”

“That’s a bit of a detour.”

“True. Some realities are harder to face than others.”

“NowthatI understand.”

His expression assured her that he did. He wasn’t judging her. That didn’t stop her from judging herself. A year of working downtown had taught her a lot about life in a big city when survival was the only plan. She’d gotten to know one young woman who’d come in daily looking for shelter and to talk about her problems.

Then one day she hadn’t come in.

A week later, Loriana found out the woman had overdosed alone in a room.

It’d taken three days to find her.

Irrationally, Loriana wondered if things would have been different if she’d said something that first morning, although the woman’d likely already been dead. And in those previous conversations? Could she’ve said something that made a difference? She’d been trained as a librarian, not a social worker. Hell, even social workers down there burned out.

Mitch squeezed her hand, and she jerked back to the present.

Still holding hands. Like the most natural thing in the world.

“What’re you thinking?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “That Mission City isn’t exempt. We have a homeless population. We have sharps containers in the bathrooms and locks on the doors to those bathrooms. We do regular sweeps to make sure no one’s passed out. Addiction permeates society, and I’ve been blessed to not have it touch me personally.” Except for the young woman from the DTES, but that hadn’t been personal. Loriana’s life course hadn’t altered because of those interactions. She’d just become more cognizant of taking each day as it came. She glanced at her watch. “I should be getting back.”

He smiled. “I enjoyed our lunch.” He relinquished her hand and folded up his wrapper as well. “I think we’ll have fun on Monday.”

She rose, and he followed.

“Will Marnie be joining us?” His concern appeared genuine.

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