“I always thought it was a shame you two drifted apart. You two played at her place every day and then you never saw each other.”
“We went to different schools after 42,” Maureen said. “You know how little girls are, everything or nothing.” Which was true, though it didn’t help the friendship that Lori’s skeevy older brother kept trying to put Maureen’s hand down his pants when Lori was in the bathroom or went to get snacks. And that Lori pushed Maureen down on the sidewalk when Maureen told her what her brother had been doing. “It was no big deal. We stayed friendly when we grew up. I’d see her around the island. She’d come in now and then where I worked sometimes. Have a drink.”
“You know, you never had another friend like that,” Amber said. “A close one.”
“I had no friends after the fifth grade,” Maureen said, “that’s right, Ma. That’s so true. Thanks for reminding me. I guess it’s why I’m so easily disappointed. And I did so have friends. Like the whole track team in high school. Just ’cause you didn’t meet them.” Maureen caught herself. She knew she sounded like she did when she was fifteen. Lying then, lying now. She took a deep breath. “Is Lori okay? Did she die?”
“Good Lord, no,” Amber said. “The morbid way you think. She got married. Finally. I was worried. She got so heavy when she moved back in with her mother. And I don’t think she works.”
Aha. There was the point, Maureen thought. Thirty-year-old, living-with-her-mother fatty Lori DiNunzio had landed a man. And I have this backwater career. “Listen, Ma, if you want me to move home and get fat so I can land a man, just say so.”
“It’s lovely,” Amber said. “To be reminded that there’s someone for everyone.”
Who was this person she was talking to, Maureen wondered. “Ma. Are you drinking in the afternoon again?”
“It gives you hope.”
“Ma.”
“Who’s gonna love you when I’m gone?”
“Ma.” Amber was hitting the box wine again, had to be. Though she didn’t sound like it.
“Maureen, Nat and I have been talking. We’ve been discussing the future.”
“I’m staying in New Orleans,” Maureen said, exasperation creeping into her tone. “I’m staying a cop in New Orleans. I’m sorry if that doesn’t make me as marriageable as old pride-of-Eltingville Lori DiNunzio.”
“Young lady,” Amber said, “we weren’t talking about your future. You’re a grown woman. You can do what you want. We’re talking about our future, his and mine.”
“Oh, wait, what are you trying to tell me? Did y’all decide about Florida?”
“Kind of.”
Maureen stood up. The blanket she was wrapped in fell to the porch. Amber and Nat had been discussing the move south for a while. Maureen knew this; they’d kept her in the loop. Amber had hesitated to consent, though, claiming reluctance to part with the only house she had ever owned, the only thing of real financial value that was hers. Maureen partially believed her. She also thought Amber was old-fashioned and wouldn’t move and cohabitate with a man she wasn’t married to. The obstacle there was Maureen’s father, twenty years in the wind.
“Ma, did Nat propose?”
Amber waited a long time to respond. “We’re not kids. It’s not like he’s going to get down on one knee and do something silly like that. Lord knows, we don’t need to be throwing away money on a ring.”
Maureen felt such an ache in her heart for her mother to have those things that she could barely breathe.
“But, yes,” Amber said, “Nat and I have discussed it. It would be much easier for us to move, to get a mortgage on a condo if we were married. And I could drop my insurance and get on his plan. With his retirement package from the city, it’s a much better plan than mine from Macy’s, and, well, I’m not getting any younger.”
“Ma, that’s amazing,” Maureen said. That sly devil, he hadn’t dropped a single hint. Even off the force and out of practice he could play it close to the vest with the best of them. Or maybe, Maureen thought, you’re not much of a detective yet. “I’m so excited. Is Nat there? Can I talk to him?”
“See, there you go again,” Amber said. “We’re talking about it and you’re ready to send out the invitations. And before any of it goes any further, there’s something we need to discuss, you and me.”
“What’s that? The honeymoon?”
“Your father,” Amber said. “We need to talk about him.”
“I forgot about him,” Maureen said after a moment.
“I didn’t,” Amber said.
“Of course not,” Maureen said. “And I didn’t mean I forgot forgot. I just, I don’t think about him much.”
“You know that I never divorced him after he disappeared,” Amber said. “I never did anything about it. Legally, we’re still married.”
“I hate that thought,” Maureen said.
“So I’m looking into something,” Amber said. “As a possible solution.”
“And what’s that?”
“Having him declared dead.”