heart seized. “I understand. I can’t tell you what I’d give for just one more day with my mother.”
A single blink, and the tears tumbled out of Francesca’s eyes and streamed down the slopes of her cheeks.
“Things weren’t right between Mother and me at the end,” she admitted. “I wasn’t the best daughter to her that I could have been. My only consolation, really, is that she had a very strong faith that allowed her a certain fearlessness at the end.”
Amber scraped her chair closer to the opposite side of Francesca. “Would you like us to pray for you?” she asked, and Jessie’s heart immediately pounded. “Right now?”
“Would you?” she asked, and Jessie’s breath caught in her throat at the unexpected reply.
* * *
After my April passed, little Jessie come to live with me a few blocks over from her homestead on Eaton Street. ’Bout a week in, after April was snug and buried, Jessie and me got done sayin’ our nighttime prayers, and Jessie looks up at me and says, “Grampy? Whatcha s’pose Mama’s doin’ tonight?”
The old ticker just ’bout gave way at the hope in those eyes o’ that young’un.
“Can’t know for sure,” I tells her. “But I guess she’s probly takin’ it easy, restin’ up.”
“Yeah, she musta been purdy tired, dontcha think?”
“I do.”
I could see her wheels a-turnin’ as I tucked in the covers around her and kissed her on the head.
“If I talk to her, do you s’pose she might hear me?”
“Could be,” I says.
“Do you wanna talk to Mama with me, Grampy?”
I thought it over a quick second before I says, “Why don’t we talk to the Father instead ’n He can relate the message when she’s rested up.”
“Okay. I guess that’d be all right.”
Three-quarters of an hour ticked by whiles Jessie talked to Jesus about all the things her mama had missed since she’d gone away. She covered the spelling bee at school, the supper she liked best of all—stew ’n biscuits with the short carrots—and the orange cones up on the corner of the main road where somebody’d knocked down a phone pole.
“I hope you’ll tell Mama about the flowers too, Jesus. She got so many of ’em that Grampy donated some to the hospital up the highway so’s some people who didn’t get no flowers when they was sick might wake up and see somethin’ purdy in their room. But we kept the ones that were Mama’s favorites. She liked the daisies and the long purple ones—”
“Iris,” I told ’er.
“Yeah. Irises. I like those too.”
“You think we might want to wrap this up, girl?” I threw in.
“Okay. Grampy says I need to wrap up,” she continued, her eyes clamped shut tight. “On account o’ you’re probly pretty busy and all. But if you wouldn’t mind, give Mama a kiss goodnight for me? On the cheek ’cause she likes that.”
My thoughts made it hard to sleep that night. A lotta nights after too. A girl without a mama needs a lotta things an old geezer like me didn’t know how to give.
Did my best, though, in the years that followed April up to heaven. Owed her that. Owed Jessie too.
Chapter 3
3
Jessie pulled the door open and stared into the face of a cardboard box bearing the logo of Granny’s Pizza on Broadway. Best pizza in Southern California, she and Danny had determined when they had lunch there together a couple weeks back.
He slowly lowered the box. “I come bearing pizza.”
She resisted the urge to return his charming smile. “Granny’s?”
“You said it was your favorite,” he replied. With a lilt to his voice, he added, “Grandma’s secret sauce, fresh mozzarella, and parmesan reggiano with sprigs of baby basil.”
“Now you’re just mocking me.”
“I’m not,” he teased. “I’m emulating your passion for the cuisine.”
She purposefully cocked one brow. “Toppings?”
“Pepperoni and onion. Mushrooms on your half.”
Her rebellious stomach growled in reply. Traitor.
“So can I come in?” Danny asked.
She took a moment, pretending to think it over. “Or you could just leave the pie and call me tomorrow.”
“Nothing doing. I had to smell this baby all the way over here.”
“Fine.” She stepped back and tugged the door the rest of the way open. “But only because I’m really, really hungry.”
The orange sun dipped low behind him, nearly finished with its day’s work. The sunglasses on his head held back normally straight hair that had dried in an unruly, wavy mop, and the faintest traces of saltwater tickled Jessie’s nostrils as he slipped past her.
“I’ll get some plates.”
Jessie heard Danny fiddling with the locks on the front door as she produced a couple of plates, some flowered paper napkins, and two bottles of water from the kitchen. When she returned, he’d made himself at home on the sofa.
She sat on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table while Danny loaded two slices on a plate and handed it to her.
“I assume this pizza comes at a cost?” she inquired.
“Indeed it does.” He grinned, sliding two more slices to his plate before dropping to the floor, folding his legs, and propping his arms on the coffee table in front of him.
“Do tell.”
He took a huge bite from one of the slices. “The price is conversation,” he said over a full mouth.
“About?”
A haze of serious concern transformed his expression, and he wiped his mouth with a napkin he already had wadded in one fist. “You have to ask?”
Her heart palpitated sharply. “Well, I can’t read your mind.” She ignored his pointed gaze long enough to bite into her pizza. “Mm, this is so good.” But the deliberate weight of his glare pressed in without wavering. When she lifted her eyes to meet it, in fact, she buckled under its intensity. “Thanks for bringing this.”
“Look, I know Jack’s return has thrown you.”
“You think?” she muttered, dropping her line of sight to the meal before her.
“I
