“I barely saw you drink at all. You must have picked up the pace after I left.”
“Maybe. Everything gets a little blurry just before midnight.” She flipped through the menu she didn’t need to read, and Paige got the impression she wasn’t even seeing the words. “I remember somebody asking Mom straight out why she didn’t like Andy Miller, though.”
Paige really needed to make rounds with the coffeepot, but she pretended not to see the empty mugs perched precariously on the very edges of tables. “What did she say?”
“She said she could barely remember and changed the subject, like I’ve seen her do before.” Katie frowned at the menu. “Her eyes get sad when it comes up. Not that it does often, but when it does, it upsets her a little.”
“Have you ever asked her?”
“Not in a very long time. Probably not since I’ve been old enough to converse with as an adult.”
“If it bothers you—if you think it’s important—maybe you should ask her again.”
Katie shoved the menu back in the holder and looked up at her. “What if she cheated on my dad? What if she cheated on my dad with his best friend?”
There was a reason Katie ran the barbershop in Whitford, and it wasn’t any great passion she had for hot lather and electric trimmers. It had been her dad’s business, and Paige knew she’d taken it over rather than see it close. They’d been close and she could see why Katie might be afraid of Rose’s answer.
“I think you should ask her,” she said. “Even if it’s as bad as what you’re thinking, talking it out together will be better than stewing about it on your own.”
Katie nodded and Paige took advantage of the lull in the conversation to refill everybody’s coffee cups. Food started appearing in the window and customers came and went, so it was a while before she could slip out back to check on Mitch.
He looked better with a stack of empty plates in front of him and an almost empty carafe of caffeine. “Thanks, Paige. Drew, the poor sucker, had to go into work and I was going to go back to bed, but there was hammering and vacuuming and I was pretty sure I might die there for a while.”
“Is Drew okay?”
“Not really, but I think it’ll be a while before he tries to drown his sorrows in alcohol again.”
Paige remembered Mitch telling her he’d be drinking a lot slower than Drew and wondered if he’d come up with a few sorrows of his own to drown. “I have a feeling Mal wasn’t in much better shape today, if Katie’s condition was anything to go by. But somebody told me Fran had Butch loading up her boxes this morning, so I guess she’s still going today.”
“It just sucks.” Mitch stood and stretched gingerly, as though afraid of moving too much. “I guess I should head back and see what joyous thing’s on the list for today. If I’m lucky I can dust or something, but knowing my demented family, Josh will have me running a power saw. You going to be home later?”
“I might,” she said in a deliberately noncommittal way.
“Maybe I’ll stop by.”
“Maybe I’ll see you then.”
Carl bellowed her name, so Mitch winked and slipped out the back door, and she went back to work. But as she delivered pancakes and wiped tables, she added “clean sheets” and “smooth legs” to her list of things to do today. Hopefully, he’d regain some of his strength over the course of the day, because he was going to need it.
*
Mitch stretched out on Paige’s couch, which was about the only full-size thing in the trailer, enjoying the feel of Paige stretched out on top of him.
“See,” she said, “if I had a TV, we wouldn’t be enjoying this time together. We’d be staring at the moving pictures in the box.”
“I think they stopped calling them that at least fifty years ago. And all I said was that it’s too bad you don’t have a TV because I actually have time to watch one right now. I could be finding out what it is the rest of the country’s always talking about.”
“Real people are more interesting.”
“Speaking of interesting people, have you talked to your mom recently?”
She snorted. “For about five minutes. She wanted to know what I thought it meant that Corey let her call go to voice mail twice in a half hour. He claims he was doing laps in the Y pool, but she’s pretty sure it’s a sign he got his hands on a calculator and figured out she’s older than he is.”
“So this is the downward spiral?”
“I’d give them another five minutes or so. This one was a little shorter than most. Pretending to be young, hip and careless was a little more of a strain, and the facade cracked earlier.”
“It’s too bad she doesn’t appreciate how awesome you are.” He kissed the part in her hair, which was a spot he particularly liked for some reason. “She’s missing out.”
“How are things with your brothers and the lodge?”
“Better, actually. I was really worried about Josh, but now that he finally got mad enough to spill his emotional guts, he’s more himself again.”