Page 87 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth
Mariah lowered her eyes. Shook her head. “No. She didn’t even want to deal with me because there was too much around me.” Sheput the last phrase in quotation marks. “I mean, that’s probably all the people who were suddenly murdered, right?”
“Maybe,” he said, and the rolling depth of his voice rumbled right through Veronica’s body. Why did a deep voice sound so wise? “But the point is that it upsets you in the long term. And it doesn’t help you heal.”
Mariah leaned forward earnestly, gesturing with an almond. “I think maybe that I just might need therightpsychic. I mean it probably costs a fortune to get one of the celebrity people, but—”
“No,” Henry said.
“You’re not my dad, dude. You can’t tell me no.”
His gaze was as solid as granite. “True.”
She ducked her head. “Sorry.”
As if called, the server arrived with food. Veronica covered Mariah’s hand with her own, offering comfort without having to make a judgment. Mariah allowed it.
They talked about other things over dinner, swimming back to the more polite versions of themselves—memory and depth and raw bits covered over with discussions of food and plans for the following day. The lamb tagine was tender and sweet, and so delicious that Veronica found herself eating every single bite, down to the last grain of rice. “So good!” she pronounced. “I will never understand why people don’t like lamb.”
“It’s a principle,” Mariah began, but Veronica held up her hand. “No lectures tonight.”
“I’d gamble most animals here are not raised on factory farms,” Henry said.
“I’ll drink to that,” Mariah said, holding up her third glass of wine. She glittered as brightly as one of the lamps throwing stars on the walls.
The courtyard reminded her again of New Mexico, the water and the glow of lamps, the reddish color of the walls. An unexpected longing for the plaza in Taos struck her, a place she had not returned to for over twenty years.
When Henry got up to shoot some photos of the swimming pool and courtyard, Mariah leaned over. “Can I sleep with you in your room?”
Veronica, startled, said the first thing that came to her mind. “There’s only one bed.”
“I know, but it’s big. We can both fit. Or I can call for a cot.”
The luxurious imaginings she’d been entertaining about Henry’s skin popped like a cartoon balloon. It was almost Christmas, Mariah was spooked, and what was her job here? To be a companion.
To a young woman, not her hot ex-almost stepdad. “Of course. I vote for the cot, however, nothing personal.”
“Sure, no, I get it. Thank you.”
“Can you forgo the TikTok psychics for a night?”
She grinned. “Yes. Netflix psychics only.” At Veronica’s expression, she said, “Just kidding.”
Veronica studied Mariah’s face for a long moment, and for a little while, the young woman met her gaze with an amiable mask.
Then she looked away, the mask dropped, and the depth of grief washed her face with gray loss.
She was lost, this one, a motherless child. Veronica touched her arm. “Whatever gets you through the night.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
From: [email protected]
Subject: More letters
Hope you’re finding some help in these letters. I have tried to read through them before I send them out and I just can’t bear it, not yet. She was such a vivid human, and I will miss her until the day I die.
Which is probably too much for an email between people who don’t know each other, but I feel like you’re in the middle of it whether you knew you would be or not.
