Try Darkness (37 page)

“Can you do this?” I said. “Do you want to do this?”

“I want to.”

“We can try to find a couple.”

“I know I’m older. Is that selfish?”

“No.”

“Some kids are raised by grandmothers, aren’t they?”

“Happens all the time,” I said.

“Can we make it happen?” she asked.

“I’ll take care of the legal hoops,” I said.

“Will we ever know who her father is?”

Kylie was petting the gray tabby. And talking to it, as if the cat was one of her best friends.

“I doubt it,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. In this case blood means nothing. Love means everything.”

“Then she’s home,” Fran said.

191

I HAD NO
home. My things were packed to leave St. Monica’s. What things I had with me in the trailer, that is.

I’d come to appreciate a certain freedom up here. Was I ready to go back to how I lived before?

Well, what else was there? Continue to practice law in the offices of the Ultimate Sip?

Professionals just didn’t do that.

Why didn’t they?

Somebody knocked on the door. I opened it.

Sister Mary stood there in her sweats, holding a basketball. “One more game?” she said. “For the road?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I want to leave on good terms. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“So you’re refusing to play?”

“That’s right. Don’t make anything out of it.”

“I just thought the big-city lawyer would rise to the challenge, but I’ve been wrong before.”

Talking smack again. She was so good at it.

And I did want to play her. I wanted the game to last forever.

“You’re on,” I said.

I got my togs from the suitcase and suited up.

Sister Mary wasn’t as on as she usually was. A lot of her shots clanked off the rim.

I guess I wanted her to beat me, but she didn’t this day.

It was my game, eleven to six.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” I said.

Sister Mary bounced the ball a couple of times, looking at the ground.

“Okay?” I said.

She kept looking down. I went to her. She looked up.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said.

She dropped the ball and walked quickly away.

Leaving me standing in a doorway between two worlds.

At least that’s what it felt like to me.

And then I ran after her.