Page 94 of The Woman on the Jury

I hadn’t been sure about them. But Miko had talked me into it. Hell, he’d been the one to take the phone out of my hand when I’d been starting to feed my ma an excuse about why I couldn’t come for lunch, then reminded me that I was supposed to be trying to make amends. And that my mother was trying to make that happen by feeding me.

“Oh, you remembered!” she said, sniffing the Calla lilies.

Of course I remembered.

It was another argument from my childhood.

Calla lilies on the dining room table. My father coming home in a mood—because he was always in a mood—and zeroing in on them.

“You putting fucking funeral flowers on my dining table?” he’d roared, and I remembered distinctly the way my ma had shrank away from him immediately, knowing what was coming. “The fuck you doing spending my money on fucking flowers anyway?”

At some point, he’d picked up the glass pitcher, and hurled it at the wall, missing Ma by all of six inches.

Every time I’d visited since his death, though, she always had some around.

“Come, sit,” she said, waving at the island, then going to the other side, stirring something on the stove. “How have you been?”

“I’m good, Ma. Just been busy. Trying to put shit to rights,” I added.

“I heard that you’re… protecting a woman,” she said, tone careful as she turned away to look at what was in the oven. I knew she wanted to pry. But she was being careful because she knew how hard it was to get me to talk about, well, fucking anything.

It was just starting to occur to me how fucking sad that was.

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Oh?” she asked, brow raised, but she was pretending only to be partially interested as she wiped down the already clean counter. “What is she like?” she asked.

“Determined. Hardworking. Really dedicated to her family business and to her aging grandfather.”

“That’s nice. Is she pretty?” she asked.

“She’s gorgeous,” I said, watching as her eyes lit up.

I wasn’t stupid.

I saw the way she fawned over the babies and kids in the family. She wanted to be a grandma like all the other moms from her generation. Unfortunately for her, both her sons were cold, detached assholes who had almost no hope of finding spouses and procreating.

Admittedly, I’d never even given it a thought before.

Suddenly, though, I was wondering about it.

If I didn’t marry and have kids, what would the next forty years look like? More of this? Working nonstop. Casual sex. Occasionally seeing my family.

That didn’t seem like something worth aspiring to.

At least not anymore.

I was going to go ahead and not wonder the reason for the sudden change.

“Really? What’s her name?”

“Halle.”

“Oh, that’s a pretty name. What is her family business?”

“Antiques,” I told her.

She asked several more questions about Halle that only made me want to cut this meal short, shirk all my afternoon work responsibilities, and go back to my place to get into bed with her, and watch her ride me.

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