She gestured at me with her sandwich. “Sorry never changed anything. What I want to hear is that you won’t do that again. Won’t make my son think he’s important and then leave him behind like he’s not.”
I shoved a bit of sandwich in my mouth to stifle any defensive crap that wanted to emerge. Once I’d chewed and swallowed, I said, “If I could’ve had music and Lee, I’d have been deliriously happy. He wouldn’t come with me—” I held up a hand as she started to say something. “Yeah, I know, he had excellent reasons why not. But our split wasn’t just me. It was our lives intersecting at the wrong moment.” I set down the sandwich, my mouth dry, but I had to tell her. “You should know, the reason I’m here in town, and not just for a flying visit to deal with my mom’s affairs, is because I killed someone and I’m working off the sentence. I’m not a good guy and Lee should probably not get involved with me.”
Ellen tilted her head. “If you really killed someone, you wouldn’t be sitting at my kitchen table.”
“The judge gave me parole.”
“What happened?”
“I took my eyes way off the road while driving at sixty miles an hour. I fucked up and a woman died. I killed her.” My throat closed and I couldn’t say more. I bowed my head and squeezed my eyes shut.Brake lights ahead, the squeal of tires, the crash…
A soft touch on my hand made me look up. Ellen met my gaze. “If the judge gave you parole, then he felt you deserved to live your life. That suggests he saw a good guy inside you.”
“She. And I had a great lawyer.” But some of what she said was the truth. “Thanks.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re good for my son, though. I saw some of your music videos over the years, huge cheering crowds. I expect you’ll be headed back to the bright lights when you can.”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my face. “If someone said, ‘Come on tour with us, play to big crowds, make some money,’ would I say no? I doubt it. At the same time, my last number-one hit was eight years ago. No one’s knocking on my door.”
“And if Lee asked you to stay?”
I bit my lip and repeated, “I don’t know. We’re not like that anymore. I don’t even know if he would want me to stay.” I wondered whether this time, Lee might come on tour with me, if I got the chance and asked. If we ever got that far again. But for all that his mom now seemed sharp as ever across the kitchen table, the texts Lee’d sent made her sound fragile. I shouldn’t even bring up taking Lee away from her.
“Eat your soup,” Ellen directed. “You won’t solve the world in a day. Just think about it. And Griffin?”
“Yes?”
Her expression softened. “I still appreciate you coming over to help me. I don’t get out of the house much, don’t have a lot of friends I can ask for a favor anymore. So thank you.”
“Anytime.” I picked up my spoon, and the homemade soup went down okay.
***
I waited on the sidewalk outside the front door of Rose Gardens at ten past five. Lee pulled up in an elderly electric-blue two-door Mazda and waved. He turned my way as I got in.
“Role reversal,” I said. “Although your beater’s even older than my beater was back in the day.”
“But it has more leg room.”
“Truth.” I buckled up and stretched out my legs.
Lee put his hand on the gearshift but hesitated. “Do you maybe want to go out somewhere to eat?”
“I could eat.” After my last hour going through family photos with an elderly man who was losing his mental way in life, confusing his daughter with his wife, I didn’t want to go back to my apartment alone. “What do you have in mind?”
“Chinese?”
“Sure.”
As he drove, Lee said, “Thanks for taking care of Mom today. That was a huge relief for me.”
“She seemed okay?” I let my tone make that a question. “Pretty sharp, actually.”
“Oh, crap.” He turned to me at a stoplight. “What did she say?”
“Just asked how long I was staying.”And basically told me not to break your heart again.
“And what didyousay?” Lee returned his attention to the road as the light went green.
