Page 77 of Half Baked

“I’ve been hearing that a lot since I’ve started talking to people who knew her,” I said with a smile, resting my hand on the armrest.

“I hope that doesn’t freak you out, especially how she ended up…dying.” She cringed.

“Actually, it gives me comfort. Like some part of her is here with me.”

“I get that,” she said, settling back on the sofa and crossing her legs. “Who have you talked to?”

“Dawn Heaton,” I said. “And also my neighbor.”

“The middle-aged couple or the crotchety younger couple?”

I didn’t remember the younger couple being crotchety, but I was little back when Annemarie knew them. “Mrs. Lebowski.”

Annemarie nodded her approval. “Good choice. I’ve always liked her.”

“I was closer to her. I stayed with her and her husband after school once I started middle school. She seemed like the logical choice.”

“I can see her watching you,” Annemarie said fondly. “She was a special lady, and I suppose you were probably getting home before your mom. She usually stayed after school to help kids. At least she did when I taught there. She loved it so much I didn’t see her stopping. Especially if she knew you were being watched by someone who would love you like her own.”

“It’s funny how, as a kid,” I said, attempting to steer the conversation to what I wanted to know, “you see your parent a certain way. You don’t think of them having a life outside of you or their job.” I shrugged. “I mean, I knew Mom did volunteer work, but I didn’t realize she used to be so heavy into the nightlife.”

Her lips drew back. “Yeah, she did go through a wild phase.”

“You knew her from teaching at the high school, right?” I asked.

“We started at the same time, both first-year teachers at the high school. I was from here—Galena—and she was from Cockamamie, but we’d never met until we were setting up our classrooms. She had a baby and then a toddler, and she spent all her time with you, but then she hit a point where she needed some me time. We’d been having some chill girls’ nights at your house so she could put you to bed, but then she suggested a girls’ weekend in Chattanooga. We had a lot of fun, so we started going there on Saturday nights. Your mom?” She shook her head with a faraway look. “She loved it. Probably too much.”

“Why too much?” I asked.

“At first, we went once or twice a month, but she got to know people at a bar we frequented and wanted to go every weekend. It got to be too much for me. I like to party—or at least I used to when I was younger—but the noise and the crowds? I met Mel around that time at a softball game and started hanging out with him. He preferred the local bars, so I stopped going with her, not that it stopped her. She started going alone.”

“You weren’t worried about her?” I asked.

A strange look filled her eyes. “No, she had friends there to look out for her.”

There was something she wasn’t telling me, but I’d circle back to it later. She might shut down the conversation if I pursued it now. “I know Aunt Deidre and Uncle Albert watched me for a while, but then she started getting a babysitter. Were you still going out with her then?”

She squirmed in her seat. “Surely you want to talk about more pleasant things. The three of us did a lot together when you were little. Like, we went to the Chattanooga aquarium. Dollywood. We even drove to Nashville one weekend.”

Part of medidcrave those stories, but I felt like we were on the precipice of getting more information, and I couldn’t turn back now. If I did, I might never get answers. “I would love to hear about those things, but before we move on…do you know if my mom had a boyfriend when she was going to Chattanooga back then?”

Her smile fell. “You know about Gordy.”

My mother had met Gordy in Chattanooga? “Not a whole lot,” I admitted. “I know they were seeing each other when she died.”

“She was seein’ Gordy again?” She shook her head with a look of disappointment. “She had a thing for bad boys, and Gordy fit the bill. Who knows how it would have ended if he hadn’t gone to jail?” She grimaced. “What am I sayin’? Sounds like she got back together with him.”

Gordy had been incarcerated? I tried to hide my shock.

Annemarie’s brow lifted. “If I’m honest, I’m surprised she brought him around you. When you were little, she had a hard line she wouldn’t cross—no men in the house. Men never met you. Seems like she would have kept a convicted felon away from you.”

Who even was Andrea Baker?

I didn’t want Annemarie to know my heart was being ripped apart, though, because then she might stop talking. So I took a note from Noah’s playbook and shoved my feelings down.

“I never met Gordy,” I admitted. “I didn’t even know he existed until Mrs. Lebowski told me about him this morning.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Your mother never introduced him to you?”

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