Page 81 of The Change
When she dropped them off at the train, she’d made them promise to stay safe. Stick together, she told them. Trust your gut and don’t take any chances. It was the same warning she always gave the twins, and given the grim ceremony they’d attended the day before, they seemed to take it a bit more seriously. But nowhere near as seriously as Nessa would have liked.
“We know why you’re sending us away so quickly,” Jordan said. “You want to spend some alone time with Franklin Rees.”
“Excuse me?” Nessa feigned outrage and both her girls cracked up.
“Yeah, we saw him looking at you. Like a big dog drooling over a thick, juicy steak,” Breanna teased.
Nessa felt her cheeks catch fire, and she fanned herself with her hand.
“He’s smoking hot for an old man,” Jordan said. “Good work, Mama.”
“I don’t know where y’all get your ideas,” Nessa tutted. “Didyou two ever stop to consider thatImight be the dog andhemight be the piece of meat?”
It was such a relief to hear her girls laughing. She’d worried about how Breanna and Jordan might feel when they learned there was a new man in her life. But the thought hadn’t seemed to cause either daughter a moment’s unease.
“I like him,” Breanna told her mother. “I’m happy for you.”
“Me too,” Jordan said. “It’s about time you got some action.”
“I’ll have you know I havenotgottenanyaction.” At that point, it was the truth. Even in Nessa’s prim and proper world, two stolen kisses did not count as action.
“Yet,” said Jordan, and the two girls burst out laughing again.
“Look at her face!” Breanna cackled.
“You two been hanging out with Harriett?” Nessa demanded.
They put on their sweetest, most innocent expressions. “What makes you think that?” Breanna asked.
“But seriously, Mama, we’re glad,” Jordan said. “This is some scary business you’ve gotten yourself into. We’re happy you’ve got someone to take care of you.”
At the time, the phrase had annoyed her. Nessa had been on her own for almost ten years. She’d guided her children to adulthood and helped her parents pass on to the afterlife. She’d done it all by herself, and she’d done a damn good job of it. She didn’t need anyone to take care of her. And yet that afternoon, when Franklin drove her home from Furious Fitness, she’d looked up at her house and realized she didn’t want to be alone anymore.
There was plenty of food left over from the funeral, so after Nessa saw her girls off, she invited him in. It was almost midnight by the time they finally shared a dish of warmed-up mac and cheese.
Now Nessa watched Franklin as he sat on the bed and tied his shoes. His movements were measured, always perfectly precise. His shirt showed no sign of spending the night on the floor. The bowson his shoes could have set a new standard. It wasn’t until he looked back and winked at her that she was able to believe this was the same man who’d been on top of her, or under her, or behind her all night. In the dark, she’d had nothing to distract her. The subject of babies never passed through her brain. She didn’t once wonder if it might lead to marriage. What they’d done had felt natural, animal, elemental. Harriett was right: sex did get better with age.
In time, she’d confess everything to her friends. But after what had happened to Jo’s little girl, today definitely wasn’t the day.
Jo pulled her car up behind a black SUV parked across the street from Harriett’s house. On the weekends, it wasn’t uncommon to see cars parked along Woodland Drive, but they were almost always gone by Monday morning. Jo got out and looked through the windows. There was no one inside. Her senses tingling, she turned her eyes to Harriett’s house, which sat still and silent on the opposite side of the road. A burst of panic sent her sprinting to the front door, which opened with a single twist of the knob.
“Morning.” Harriett was at her workbench, scraping a plate full of bright red chunks into her blender.
“You’re okay.” Jo doubled over in relief.
“You sound surprised,” Harriett said. “Smoothie?”
Jo shook her head over the sound of the blender. When the contents of the pitcher were a brilliant red, Harriett punched the off button.
“What’s in that?” Jo asked.
“Beet juice,” Harriett said, pouring herself a glass of the mixture. “Good and good for you.”
“There’s a strange SUV parked across the street,” Jo informed her.
Harriett took a sip of her concoction. “Is there?” she asked without bothering to look. Her teeth were red when she smiled. “If itstays there too long, my nosy neighbors will have it towed. By the way, a baby police officer stopped by early this morning. He said you’d sent him. He wouldn’t tell me why, but he said you were fine.”
“No one bothered you last night?”
