Page 67 of Half Baked

She opened a cabinet and pulled out a small plate, loaded it with four cookies and set it in front of me and Noah. “Do you prefer coffee, milk, or water, Noah?”

“Coffee if you still have some.”

“Coffee is the elixir of life,” she said. “I drink it all day long, much to my doctor’s chagrin, although I tell him I’ve made it seventy-eight years drinking six to eight cups a day, and I don’t see any point in stopping now.”

“I like your motto,” Noah said with a laugh.

“I’ll take coffee too,” I said, picking up a cookie. “I’ve outgrown milk.”

“I suppose you have,” she said, beaming with happiness. She pulled two coffee cups out of the cabinet and filled them.

Once she set the cups in front of us, along with creamer, she refilled her mug and leaned against the counter. “Now, tell me what brings you by today.”

I set my half-eaten cookie back on the plate. “I want to ask you some questions about my childhood and my mother.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she nodded. “I always wondered if you’d have questions.”

I leaned my forearms on the counter. “Do you remember my mother ever having a boyfriend?”

She let out a nervous laugh. “You jumped right in, didn’t you?”

I shrugged.

She pushed away from the counter and started scooping cookies off the sheet and onto the wire rack. “Yes, I do. Your mother had multiple men in her life over the years.”

Multiple?But I kept my voice even to hide my surprise when I said, “I don’t remember any of them.”

“She never brought them home. She discussed it with me a few times, saying she’d never let you get attached to another man, only for him to walk away from you. She said one man had already done that, and she wouldn’t let it happen again.”

“My father?”

She nodded.

“I heard she went to bars on the weekends when I was little.”

She hesitated. “Sometimes. Other times, it was parties, I think.”

“In Chattanooga?” I asked.

“When you were little, she’d go there or sometimes Atlanta if she wanted to get away for the weekend. She said the nightlife in Cockamamie was lacking.”

I wasn’t surprised she’d left Cockamamie for an active nightlife, especially since she was a schoolteacher and had a reputation to maintain, but I didn’t ever remember her going to Atlanta.

“It still is,” I said with a wry smile.

“True, but it was even duller back then.” She grinned. “Or so I’m told.”

“Did you know my mother when she was younger? Before she went to college?”

“No, we went to different churches. I didn’t know her until she moved in next door. You weren’t quite two. Andrea was a sweet thing. Always cheerful. So full of life. I loved her instantly.”

“Everyone loved her,” I said softly.

“She lovedyou,” Mrs. Lebowski said. “Fiercely. She wanted you to have a loving, independent home like her parents had given her, but your aunt would have preferred if you’d both stayed at Cabbage Rose House with her and Albert.”

“What?I didn’t know that.”

“Deidre gave up eventually, but she and Albert couldn’t have children either, and I think she thought of you as partially hers. You and Andrea spent a lot of time with them, but your mother felt it was important for you two to have your own place.”

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