her hair. “Doesn’t matter if you do it with shy smiles, big eyes, and sweet talking ‘suggestions.’ I’m not fooled.”
That shy smile appeared, and she twined her arms around his neck. “I’m still yours.”
“You bet your sweet ass you are.”
Thanks to some additional discounts the trip organizers dug up, Elaine had the opportunity to stay an extra week out west, and Rory had encouraged it. As a result, by the time his mother returned, he was almost a hundred percent again, which was good. But he wondered if she was still upset about what had happened, because on the way back from the airport, he sensed some tension under her warm greeting for them, the chatty discussion of the details of her trip. They’d brought his van, so Elaine had the front while Daralyn sat in the second row seat that could be flipped up next to his anchored chair.
Rory noted his mother kept glancing at him, then looking toward Daralyn, with an oddly frustrated and worried glance.
“You okay, Mom?” he asked once, reaching out to touch her hand at a stoplight. His mother latched onto it, giving him a hard squeeze before the green light required her to let him go.
“Yes,” she said. “Glad to be home.”
He met Daralyn’s gaze in the mirror. Neither of them was fooled, but whatever it was, his mother didn’t want to talk about it right now, so he let it go for the moment.
Daralyn had fixed a lunch, so while she went to the kitchen to work on setting that out, Rory debated whether to help or follow his mother to her room. Daralyn helped him decide.
She put the potato salad on the counter and glanced in the direction Elaine had disappeared. “Maybe she’ll talk to you alone,” she said. “About whatever it is.”
“Yeah. Let me go see.” He briefly gripped her hand, their fingers tangling, then he pivoted the chair and made his way down the hallway.
Elaine had opened her suitcase on the bed, but had sunk down next to it. She hadn’t taken anything out yet, which told Rory there was definitely something off. She was an obsessive nester, always insisting on getting everything unpacked first thing after a trip.
“Mom?”
Everything she’d texted or called about while traveling had suggested the trip had gone well, and she’d had a great time. So he braced himself for a lecture and marshaled a reassuring rebuttal, since the only thing he figured could be upsetting her was being away while he landed up in the hospital.
When she began to speak, he wished that had been it.
“I received a call from the ADA who handled the prosecution of Daralyn’s uncle,” Elaine said, meeting his gaze. “We should be getting a letter from the Department of Corrections in a few days. Daralyn’s uncle is being released in a few weeks. Health reasons. He has terminal liver cancer.”
Son of a bitch. As he digested that, her gaze went from him to the hallway behind him. He inhaled her scent, knew Daralyn was there. No surprise, since Daralyn had likely been listening, worried about Elaine and wanting to know how she could help.
Without looking her way, Rory lifted a hand. Elaine’s gaze flickered as Daralyn stepped into the room and took it, leaning against him in his chair.
“You can talk to us both, Mom,” he said. “She can handle it. She can handle anything.”
Regret crossed Elaine’s features. Her gaze shifted to Daralyn and she nodded, an apology. “Of course. I’m sorry, honey. I should have asked you to come in here before I said anything. I’m just…I know you’re not a child anymore, but I’m just so very tired of you having to handle so much.”
She wasn’t the only one, but Rory’s whole point in having Daralyn stand next to him, where he could put his arm around her waist, have her rest hers around his shoulders, was to confirm for her that it was okay. A reminder that Daralyn could trust that this life she’d built for herself wasn’t going to disappear. They wouldn’t let it.
Daralyn looked at him, then at Elaine, and there was resolve on her face. “But I don’t have to handle so much,” she said quietly. “Not alone. I haven’t had to handle anything alone for a long time, thanks to all of you.”
Rory shot his mother a tight smile and Elaine shook her head. “All my children are growing up,” she said. She took a breath. “I can’t anticipate what he’ll do, but