Page 87 of David's Love

Right then and there, it dawns on me she knows him well. Her voice is lined with familiarity, as if she’s talking about a family member.

I nod and swallow hard as if a toad sleeps in my throat.

“David Moore,” she says, a knowing smile lighting her eyes. “Handsome David.”

She takes a sip and picks another cookie from the pile while I wonder whether I’m just another woman in a line of women who have walked this path and come here inquiring about the mysterious billionaire.

“How is he doing?” she asks, her eyes locked on mine again.

“He’s good. Busy. Working and traveling a lot,” I say in a clipped voice like we’re talking about my boss, who he is, by the way.

A few moments slip away.

“Do you know him?” I ask, mostly rhetorically, as it’s obvious that she does.

I just don’t know how far back they go.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

She grabs a napkin from the holder and runs it across her lips before pushing her chair back.

“Let me get something for you,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

The cat stares at me unperturbed while the woman walks away from the table, and soon after, her footsteps trail to the back.

A few muffled sounds make me think she unlocks and opens a drawer before removing something and pushing it back.

“I always wondered…” she says softly while casually walking to the table, “if I would talk to someone about this story someday.”

A smile curls her lips while she reclaims her seat.

“Honestly, I kind of lost hope,” she adds, sliding the cookie tin to the side and making room for an old shoe box with a green lid and a faded brand name across the side.

Quietly, I look at her, my apprehension fading as I have just learned I’m the only person inquiring about David.

She opens the box and pulls out a few old pictures and a ziplock bag full of hand scribbled notes, letters, and official documents. Stuff people keep around the house and leave behind for future generations.

“Eleanor became his foster mother when he was twelve,” she says, and my eyebrows flick up, but I stay mum as she continues. “She never told me why or when he’d entered the system. My understanding was that he had foster parents before he was placed with her. He was a good kid,” she says, looking at a couple of pictures before pushing them to me.

My fingers hover over the pictures, but my eyes stay trained on her as I process the news.

“What do you mean by good?” I murmur.

“He didn’t act out. He was very disciplined and had good grades. I think he liked living with her. Eleanor was…”

Smiling, she looks down and taps a photograph with her index finger.

“She was a very nice woman.”

I finally tip my gaze down and look at the picture.

She slides it to me, and I scoop it up.

The woman in the picture smiles at the camera. She wears a green skirt suit with an eye-popping pin on the lapel of her jacket and holds a bouquet of roses.

Next to her, a tall, slender teen decked out in a suit squints against the sun.

“He was fourteen in that picture, and that’s when she had her best year as a real estate agent.”

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