She laughed.
“Just you wait.”
She groaned as she settled slowly back in her chair, furtherproving his point. “Are you not feeling well?” She laid her paper napkin acrossher lap while covertly studying him for signs of illness.
“Aches and pains. Let’s stop talking about how old I am.” Hewaved his fork dismissively.
“I’m not too far behind you. If I didn’t write everything down,I’d never know where I was supposed to be or what I’m doing.”
“That’s because you work too hard.”
“Says the man who had two jobs for most of his adult life.”
“Raising Jacq wasn’t cheap.”
Casey laughed with him. “She does have expensive taste. But Idon’t have it easy either. You’ve seen Sean eat.”
“You have a point there. I’ve stayed out of the business betweenyou. But I’m sure if you needed money for Sean, Jacq—”
“No. She’s always done more than her share for him financially.”She set her fork down and wiped her mouth, her appetite waning with the changein topic. “Sometimes, the extra work is more about filling the hours than thebank account.” She didn’t want him worrying about her finances. And herstatement was partly true. She readily admitted she’d been experiencing a bitof empty-nest syndrome. But more than that, she found a degree of satisfactionin capturing the perfect memories for couples and families.
Chapter Three
By the time Casey left Teddy’s house, the sun had long set,but she refused the offer to take his car. Still, she kept a vigilant watch andmaintained her pace through the dark patches between the circles of streetlampglow. She carried her keys fisted in her hand, with one sticking out betweenher middle and index fingers. They lived in a relatively safe area outside ofthe metropolitan area of Nashville, but as the city continued to grow andchange, so did the neighborhoods around it. One of the homes down the blockfrom Teddy had been broken into just last week. The residents weren’t home, andtheir security alarm had apparently scared off the suspects before they couldget much from the house.
Casey worried more about Teddy than about herself. But he and hislate wife had bought the house just before Jacqueline was born, and he’d likelydie in it, just as she had. Casey had lost her parents in a car accident whileshe was in college. Teddy and his wife had been nearly as instrumental asJacqueline in getting her through their funerals and the months following whilesettling their estate.
She and Jacqueline had been separated for two years whenJacqueline’s mother had passed away. She marveled at how differently her familyhad dealt with their grief. Teddy had withdrawn from everyone except Sean, who,at only fourteen, had probably processed his loss most easily of any of them.She hated that he’d said good-bye to so many people in his life already. Asmuch as she knew he loved his adopted family, he also seemed to hold a piece ofhimself back, as if expecting he might lose them at any time.
Casey spent the days and weeks following the funeral trying totake care of everyone, while privately dealing with losing her second mother.She forced home-cooked meals on Teddy, smothered Sean with love, and sentlargely unanswered texts to Jacqueline just checking in. Jacqueline, like herfather, had isolated herself. Casey suspected she’d thrown herself even moreinto work, but she hadn’t known how Jacqueline was handling her downtime, whenshe couldn’t escape her grief.
She’d found out one night when Jacqueline had responded to hertext by calling her cell phone. Jacqueline had sounded exhausted and slurredher words. She probably should have demurred when Jacqueline asked her to comeover, but she’d never been able to refuse Jacqueline when she needed somethingbadly enough to ask for it. Jacqueline was almost a full bottle of wine aheadof her when she arrived at the apartment. She made a cursory attempt to catchup but still had most of her faculties about her when Jacqueline, sappy andsentimental, moved into her arms. Casey struggled to keep the embrace friendlyand comforting. But then Jacqueline had kissed Casey’s neck, and she’d beenlost. When Jacqueline started taking Casey’s clothes off, she’d tried to behonorable, given that Jacqueline seemed to be walking that line between justdrunk enough and just sober enough. Apparently, Jacqueline remembered how totouch her in order to short-circuit her brain, and she’d given herself over tothat sensation, perhaps too easily.
As she unlocked her front door, she closed off those dangerousmemories and forced her thoughts back to Teddy. She’d been getting moreconcerned about him but hadn’t decided how to proceed. She settled on the couchand picked up her cell phone, then set it aside, delaying her next move.
If she took them separately, she could discount his moments ofconfusion in the same way he did, the rigors of aging. And maybe that’s allthey were. She wasn’t a doctor. But when they were coupled with his newfoundclumsiness, she couldn’t disregard them altogether. Just this evening, he’dstumbled as he made his way into the living room. She’d been close enough tograb his elbow and halt his fall. He’d immediately blamed Jacqueline for movingthe lamp table next to the couch. But the table had been in the same place foras long as Casey could recall, and she couldn’t see any indentations in thecarpet to indicate it had been moved.
Any time she tried to have a serious discussion with him, hedismissed her. The one time she’d pushed even further, he’d retreated to his workshopin the garage. She’d backed off and tried never to chase him out there again,mostly because she didn’t like the idea of him messing around with power toolsjust to spite her. Her next step was to call in backup.
She didn’t want to distract Sean from his studies, so she’d haveto contact Jacqueline. They’d gotten pretty good at co-parenting. But for somereason, Teddy was a sore spot between them. Jacqueline seemed to resent hercontinued involvement in Teddy’s life, appearing to think that when Sean gotold enough to maintain his own relationship with his grandfather, Casey shouldhave simply cut off contact
