Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,47

I was going to murder my younger cousin the next time she hit me up for cash.

Aunt Nan was immune to bullshit—especially mine, and especially about this topic.

I decided to stall. “Is that what Emily told you? Well, I’m not.”

Silence. “Don’t play games with me.”

I leaned against the wall, prayed for patience. “I’m in New York right now, at our offices. But yes, I was in Green Valley very briefly. And I’ll be going back.”

Silence.

“Did you call just so I could hear you breathe into the phone? Because—”

“Why?”

I could easily imagine her standing in the kitchen doorway of her Ann Arbor bungalow, worrying the cord to the wall-mounted phone. I’d bet money, good money, that she was scowling at the opposite wall and chewing on her lower lip.

What I’d hoped would be a stealth trip—one she’d never learn about—had turned out to be anything but. I sighed, feeling resigned. I sat on the nearby plastic chair, rested my elbows on my knees, and searched for the perfect words to reassure her. Perfect words don’t exist.

“It’s for a deal.” I took a breath. “An important deal.”

“A deal that just happens to be in Green Valley.”

Classical music played in the background on her end. My uncle Steve was likely in the adjoining study. He preferred Bach when mulling over his engineering puzzles.

I felt an unexpected pull, a sharp pang of longing. I missed them. I didn’t see Aunt Nan and Uncle Steve often; I typically spent my time between New York and San Francisco. But something about being here made me miss that connection, that feeling of belonging somewhere.

“I talked to Eddie,” she said.

Shit.

I wiped at my tired eyes. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. Eddie and my Aunt Nan had been co-conspirators for years.

“Okay.”

“He’s worried about you. And so am I.”

“You shouldn’t be. It’s business, that’s it.”

“You’re my sister’s son, and she raised you. But I know you. Whatever this is, it’s not about money. Now, tell me the truth.”

I turned to face the sun’s glare against the lobby glass. A procession of cars and taxis inched down Fifth Avenue, their indignant horns blaring. I wished I were back outside and far away from this conversation.

“Why would you want to be go back there?” she pressed. “Eddie told me you took point on this project, rushed it through and barely told him anything about it. And you sure as hell didn’t clue him in to your history with that place.”

That place. That was how she’d referred to Green Valley ever since my mother and I had shown up at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport separately, worn and defeated. She hated all that Green Valley represented. That my mother had left Michigan with my father all those years ago and settled there, so far from home. That so much had happened in the space of her estrangement with my mother, without her ever knowing. It was just the way of grief, I supposed, the desperate casting about for answers, the way you assigned blame to just about anything to make sense of the loss, to cope, to find peace. She and I both knew the blame for all that happened couldn’t be attributed to a location, even if it’d all taken place in Green Valley. But in the end, did it matter? She’d lost her sister. I lost my mother.

“I don’t know, Aunt Nan,” I said, gripping a handful of my hair. “I guess I’ve never really found a perfect time to tell my business partner the nitty gritty about how my mother got addicted to drugs. Just never came up, you know?”

Music continued on her end during her silence. Something with strings, with a driving beat. Yep, it was Bach alright. Nan probably thought the music would drown out her side of the conversation, but Uncle Steve was smarter than that. I’d get a call from him soon.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said, and I bolted upright when I heard the threat of tears in her voice. Aunt Nan did not cry. She grabbed life by the horns, pinned it, and dared it to get up again. She’d never allowed me a moment to stop, to feel sorry for myself or about what had happened. In fact, Zora reminded me of her, especially the remixed, adult version of Zora. Aunt Nan had always been behind me, pushing, prodding, heckling with coarse language. It was a far different style of nurturing, especially compared to my mother’s demonstrative, permissive style of parenting.