“See?” she murmurs. “Relaxing. Right?”
I give her a smile. “Feels weird.”
Her lips touch my jaw just beneath my earlobe. “This is happy, honey. Take it in.”
“Like it. A lot.” I roll a shoulder. “Still kinda weird to me that everyone is here partying and having a good time while your dad is in the hospital.”
She laughs. “He’d insist.” She takes a fake gruff tone with a thick Southern twang. “‘I ain’t dead, dagnabbit, jes’ laid up. If that house ain’t full to bustin’ when I get there, we gon’ havewords.’”
“Ohmygosh,” one of the women nearby says, laughing, “that’sexactlywhat Uncle Zeke would say, and it sounds just like him!” She’s got dark hair, light eyes, she’s pretty, slender, a few years older than Myka.
Most of the others around us, I’ve noticed, have pretty distinct Southern accents, yet Myka doesn’t. Once in a while, a word here or there will have a bit of a lilt to it, but not like everyone else, and certainly not anything like the accent she gave her father.
“You don’t have an accent,” I say to her.
She frowns, her expression darkening. “I know. I sort of, um…lost it.”
“Yeah, well, now that you’re dang well good and shot of that…that…” the woman who’d noted Myka’s impression of her father sputters, “jerk holeyou were married to, you can go ahead and get it back.”
I narrow my eyes at Myka. “Care to fill me in?”
She sighs. “Darren. He’s always had…delusions of grandeur. He used to have arealaccent, like big time. But he overheard some colleagues making fun of him at the gym for it, and he sort of instantly lost it. Appearances are everything to Darren—everything. So, when he decided to lose his accent, that meant I had to, as well. I couldn’t dine with him and his colleagues and their country club, pearl-wearing wives and reflect well on him if I sounded, as he put it, ‘like a hillbilly.’’ She emphasizes the phrase both with air quotes and a venomous tone. “So, I lost the accent, to make him happy.”
“If appearances were everything to him,” I say, “he’d take better care of his body. Obvious from one look that ain’t the case.”
The woman—I haven’t caught her name, yet—leans forward. “Yousawhim?”
Myka rolls her eyes. “He showed up at the hospital, wanted totalk.”
“Hecheatedon you with achild, and a barely legal one at that.”
“Penny,” Myka drawls, “You don’t know the half of it.” She smirks at me. “And he’s gone downhill since I left. He used to keep pretty fit—squash at the club with his colleagues, things like that. Clearly, whatever’s happened in his life since I left hasn’t been good to him.”
Penny giggles. “I’ve seen him around town, you know. He’s at Frederick’s every night—I drive by on my way home from the hospital every night, and that fancy car of his is always there.” She loves this gossip, clearly. “I heard that trollop he was stepping out with left him already.”
Myka snorts. “Oh, Penny. You’re a hopeless gossip.” She sighs a laugh. “So I’ve heard, from Ana. And honestly, I don’t really care. I don’t wish him ill—in fact, I hope he finds happiness. I just want nothing to do with him.”
“Well, you’re a better woman than I, Myka Donovan.” Penny shakes her head. “If even half of what I’ve heard about how he treated you is true, he darned well deserves ill. God forgive me if I’m being judgmental, but He knows my heart is in the right place.”
Myka blows a raspberry. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but chances are, most of it is probably true, and chances are, it’s not the half of it.”
“Oh, I’ve heard plenty. Not gossip, mind you, just…people were concerned for you, there for a while.” It’s a leading statement, blatantly so.
Myka is going tense against me. “Well, it’s behind me.”
“I suppose so, and good thing, too, but we all still—”
I turn my eyes to Penny’s. “Not thinkin’ Myka wants to keep talkin’ about it,” I say, putting a note of warning into my voice.
“Oh—oh, right. Yes, probably not.” Penny blushes, looks away. “Sorry, honey. Just—”
Myka smiles at Penny, soothing as ever. “It’s fine, Pen. It’s behind me, and I’m glad it is.” She squeezes my hand and looks at me—that look she often gives me, like I stamped her name on the moon and hung it just for her, the look that cracks my heart wide open and fills it, chases out the dark. “I’m moving forward, now.”
* * *
It’s evening,going dark. Folks have filtered away, the clusters of conversation reducing to fewer and fewer, until only her immediate siblings, their spouses, and their kids remain. Her mother is bustling around cleaning up. Lou, Jordan’s wife, and Angus’s wife Callie are helping, while Juniper, Mallory, Ana, Jordan, Angus, and three men I’ve seen around but haven’t met yet—whom I assume are the fiancés and Ana’s husband—sit in the den, watching some singing show on TV while the kids continue to sprint around screaming like hellions. At least one child has passed out—a little girl, who is carried upstairs.
Myka rummages in her mother’s freezer and comes out with a pint of ice cream, nabs a spoon, and pulls me outside. Indicates the porch swing. I sit, and she plops down beside me, curls her feet under her thigh, covers us with the blanket, and digs into the ice cream. She spoons some into her mouth, scrapes more onto the spoon, and nudges my lips with it.
