“You forgot Mrs. Nash again,” he says, holding out my backpack with one hand while his other presses against the spot on his shoulder where my hair assaulted him.
“Thanks.” I instill the word with as much anger as possible, and pull my bag from his grasp with more force than is necessary. It may seem petulant, but I know I cannot give an inch or my poor, foolish heart will insist on giving him twelve hundred miles.
Hollis steps closer and frames my face in his hands. My desire to pull away is overruled by my instinct to nuzzle into his palm. I think he knows that my anger is like one of those fake fireplaces—a whole lot of heat but no real flame. I can make him sweat, make him want to keep his distance. But I won’t actually burn him if he’sbrave enough to get close. And he is. His lips press against my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Mill. I know that’s probably not enough, and I understand why you don’t want to stay. But please, at least tell me where you’re going?”
I shake my head, and his hands fall to his sides. “You don’t get to know how this ends,” I say, and walk away.
24
•••••
If I were in a better mood, I might find the humor in having traveled all the way to Key West to wind up waiting around for Elsie’s great-niece in a generic strip-mall Starbucks. But I’m obviously in the worst mood, so I’m mostly resentful. Tammy is fifteen minutes late. That might not be egregious under normal circumstances, but I’ve had a really rough day. Shortly after I arrived, I shoved a slice of banana bread into my mouth and gulped down a grande iced mocha in record time. I’m now running solely on sugar, caffeine, anxiety, and the pain of betrayal. It’s not exactly an ideal recipe for patient waiting.
A willowy woman in a mauve linen pantsuit strolls in and moves her sunglasses to the top of her head, inadvertently pulling a few strands from her blonde French twist. Her skin is almost as blindingly white as mine; I wouldn’t peg her as a local except that she’s otherwise the spitting image of Elsie. Bake Tammy in the sun for a few days and it would be difficult to tell the difference between a picture of her and the one of her great-aunt that I foundin the Naval History and Heritage Command archives. Which is extra impressive considering Elsie was in her early twenties in that photo, and Tammy must be close to fifty.
Her eyes meet mine across the room, and I give her a little wave.
“Millicent?” she asks.
“Mhm. Hi, Tammy.”
“So sorry to keep you waiting. I was finishing up an offer—I’m in real estate—and I was trying to wait for the clients to send some info, but it wound up taking a lot longer than I thought it would and, anyway, I’m here now.”
I force myself to smile, even though I don’t feel very smiley. “No problem,” I say.
“So you’re Rose’s... great-granddaughter?”
“No, I—”
“Sorry, hold that thought. Let me just go order quick. Do you need anything? No?”
She hurries away to the counter. I let out a sigh. This isn’t going how I imagined. Then again, nothing today has, so why should this be any different?
“Okay,” she says, sitting across from me once she has her coffee. She takes a sip from her venti iced double shot, which I overheard the barista warn her is made withfiveshots of espresso. My heartbeat is erratic even looking at that much caffeine. Apparently, Tammy is made of stronger stuff. “You were saying about your great-grandmother?”
“Oh, no, there’s no relation actually. I lived with Mrs. Nash at the end of her life. Sort of a caretaker.” If Mrs. Nash heard me refer to myself this way she would have a conniption. She hated any insinuation she couldn’t care for herself; if I hadn’t needed tomove out of the apartment I shared with Josh, I doubt she ever would have agreed to let anyone live with her. I was always introduced to doctors, relatives, and whomever else we encountered while in the world together as either Mrs. Nash’s “good friend Millie” or “roommate” (or once, when she was mad at me for getting oat milk instead of her preferred almond, she referred to me as her “temporary tenant”). But Mrs. Nash can’t protest now, and I did care for her in all the ways, so caretaker is the easiest explanation.
Besides, I’m starting to suspect Tammy isn’t that interested in these details. My suspicion is confirmed when she gives me a tight-lipped smile and says, “I have to be honest with you, Millicent. When Aunt Elsie said I needed to deliver letters to Rose’s pigeon, I thought the pain meds they had her on were making her loopy. It wasn’t until Rhoda called and told me you stopped by The Palms to see Elsie that I realized what she meant. It’s just, well, she barely spoke of Rose.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. Tammy must see because she lays a hand briefly over mine in an attempt to be comforting. Instead, it’s mostly awkward.
“Then again, she didn’t like talking about the past,” she says. “Aunt Elsie was very private. Growing up, I honestly thought she was just an old spinster, married to her career. Then when she retired from medicine in ’83 and no longer had to worry what anyone would think, she started volunteering at a clinic for AIDS patients and living openly with Martina. I was a teenager then, staying with them here for the summer, and I remember being likeohhh.” Tammy lets out a little laugh.
“Martina?” I ask. It’s not that I expected Elsie to be alone for the rest of her life—Mrs. Nash had Mr. Nash, of course. But theidea that there was someone else who meant something to Elsie gives me this shameful pang of jealousy on Mrs. Nash’s behalf.
“Martina was a surgical nurse at the hospital where Elsie worked. They were together for almost thirty years.”
“What happened to her?”
“She moved back to Bulgaria to be closer to her family. That was in... ’05 maybe? Elsie didn’t want to leave Key West, so they broke up. It was all very amicable from what I understand. They kept in touch. Martina wanted to come for the memorial service, actually, but she’s too old for that kind of travel.” Tammy looks off into the distance and her lips move without making a sound, as if she’s doing some calculation in her head. “She was a bit younger than Aunt Elsie, but she’s probably in her late eighties now.”
This talk of Elsie loving someone other than Mrs. Nash feels dangerously close to Hollis being right. And Frederick Hollis Hollenbeck is the last person I want to be conceding anything to at the moment.
“You mentioned the memorial service?” I literally cross my fingers under the table, hoping that it hasn’t happened yet.
“Yeah. We did a thing yesterday afternoon at The Palms. Just a small gathering of close family and her friends at the facility.”
“Oh. Is she buried nearby?” Maybe if I visit her grave I’ll find some sort of closure. That’s all Mrs. Nash and I had originally planned to do anyway.
