CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The next few days were not bad ones, just monotonous, unfulfilling, and slow to pass. Scouring the internet for information on animatronic technology brought her no new revelations since the last time she'd looked and within a few fruitless hours, she had to face the facts: The only hope of repairing the animatronics was to get the manufactory in Faust's underground lair working again, and the only hope of doing that was to find the interface.
Maybe she should just ask him for the damn thing.
Yeah, sure, that would go over well. Just a few days after he'd asked her to kill his creations, she was seriously going to ask him for the device that would allow her to repair them? No, that wasn't happening.
So what did that leave? Break back in, she supposed. Search the house, top to bottom. Try the safe again. She couldn't remember seeing a device such as Freddy had described, but then, she hadn't been looking for one either. And it might be in the mysterious double-locked box that the old man wanted her to open.
But there was a car parked in front of the glass mansion when she made the long walk back up the drive on Monday night, and through the windows, she could see Chad restlessly moving room to room. Looking for evidence he'd neglected to mop up or just looking for loot, she couldn't tell, but his unpredictable presence made her own search impossible, so she bailed and went home. Tuesday night, one of Mammon's world-ending storms blew in, and not only would it have been unpleasant to hike two winding miles up the canyon to the house, but she could not have avoided tracking mud in, and in any case, she got an early morning call from Shelly to go out and help clear a tree that had fallen over the only road leading out of town, so it was just as well she hadn't gone burglaring that night.
She and the other poor bastards Shelly had rousted out of bed worked clean-up in the steady rain until the rest of the crew arrived back at the office and then they all topped off their coffee canisters and trudged out to the site of the future dealership to 'start' the work-day—muddy, sore and bone-tired.
So it was a long day, part-time notwithstanding. Some of her new crew were still a little sour on the subject of her promotion over every man who had been there longer, and Bisano in particular would not let the fuck up about it. Although Ana heard the mutters, she did not confront him. Instead, she put everyone on interior walls for the day, which had the dual benefit of keeping everyone dry and also in close quarters. After that, all she had to do was wait.
Within a very short time, the worst of it had been said enough times to get old and annoying to those who had to listen, even if they hadn't been up since four, sawing stormfall alongside Ana while the guy doing all the complaining had been sound asleep in his bed. This was what Ana was waiting for. If she had even once told Bisano to knock it off, it would have never stopped. When Hageman bellowed at him to quit his infernal goddamned bitching before he put his whining face on the other side of his goddamned head, Bisano shut his mouth and kept it shut. He remained surly whenever circumstances forced him to interact with Ana, but she couldn't care less if he liked her, as long as he did his job.
To celebrate the peace and quiet, she offered hot food on her dime down at Gallifrey's after the shift was over and most of the crew took her up on it. It was the first real chance she'd had to sit down in almost twelve hours and the hard wooden seats of the diner's chairs were almost heavenly, like her Betty Burger, her first plated meal since the eggs benedict in the hospital with Mr. Faust. No one went out of their way to include her in their conversations, but they didn't exclude her either, so that was progress.
No one had much to say anyway. Big Paulie and his wife merited a few remarks, but the death was old news and everyone agreed that the kids were smart not to make a big deal out of the funeral. Best just to get them planted quietly and forget it had ever happened. The city had already taken possession of the property and the order was on Shelly's desk to demolish the lot just as soon as the weather permitted. And after that, there was nothing to listen to except Hageman's nervous blend of pride and pessimism as he told them all about his daughter's new job in Seattle. He wasn't too clear on just what the job was, but it was management, paid well and came with great benefits, and most importantly of all, his 'little princess' was excited, even if her old man had reservations. Seemed like all the young ones were leaving. Slater was no great loss, but Wyborn's folks were missing him, the last of the Gallifrey flowers had planted herself on the west coast, and now the Wexler girl was headed off to some remote mountaintop in Alaska, of all places.
"All the young ones are leaving," Hageman said again, shaking his head as he picked straggler fries off his plate one by one and crammed the whole mass of them into his mouth at once. "I think you're the first I've seen come back since…huh."
"Since Mace Kellar," Ana prompted.
"Ah hell, girl, I wouldn't peg you in with that lot of bad apples. No matter what his mama says, those boys were rotten to the core."
Grunts of affirmation ran around the table.
"Besides, he didn't come back in the sense of the word, just lay up low for a few months, bringing in all them disreputables and hieing out again soon as the wind changed. At least he took his brother with him when he left this time. Tell you what, I only thought little Jackie was bad news until I saw Mason and that pack of prison-dogs he brought with him. They were all mixed up with cartels," he added sagely.
"That's what I hear," Ana agreed and thought again of waking up on the floor in Pirate Cove with someone else's blood dried on her face and soaked into her shirt, which only led to her thinking of Freddy's story that Mason got a phone call as they were dumping Bonnie in the quarry and they all just left. She guessed she had to believe that, not because Freddy had told her, but because Chica had. Freddy and the truth were nodding acquaintances at best, personal feeling notwithstanding, but Chica wouldn't lie about something like that, and for that matter, if Foxy had killed Mason for her that night (as some fuzzy false memory insisted he had promised to do), would he really keep quiet about it? Or would he brag it around, play the my-hero card and maybe even tried to steal a kiss out of her as if she were one of the many princesses he'd saved in his stories?
Maybe Mason really had left.
Or…and here was a thought Ana couldn't believe had taken this long to occur to her…Or maybe Ana had killed him herself. Mason's crew were exactly the faithless bunch of bastards who would cut and run if they saw the girl they'd come to kill take a bandsaw to their boss's face. She supposed she could believe Freddy could have dumped Mason's body and lied about the call rather than tell her what she'd done to keep her from doing something even more stupid, like confess to a murder.
Not that she ever would. The thought that she might have killed Mason brought with it no great swell of any kind of emotion, only a cold peevishness that she couldn't remember doing it. She didn't really care if the man was dead or alive (although she certainly preferred dead), as long as she knew he wasn't going to turn up on her doorstep again someday.
Still, it was kind of cute that Freddy thought she could develop a guilty conscience over someone like Mason Kellar. He had a higher opinion of her than she deserved.
"I think it was Jimmy," Hageman said suddenly, bringing her out of her sentimental reverie. "Hey Jergens!"
"Nix the name-calling," Ana said. "Mind your manners."
"Yeah, boss. Jimmy!"
Jimmy broke the trancelike hold his half-eaten club sandwich had on him and looked around. "What?"
"You know of anyone else but you and Stark who ever come back to Mammon?"
Jimmy shrugged, looking far more uncomfortable than the simple question should have dictated, then forestalled further questions by taking a huge bite of his sandwich, chewing like it was actually made from sand.
Hageman took the hint and pushed his chair back. "I got to get home," he announced, peering out the window. "You all better do the same and get some early sleep before they call us out to stack sandbags down the middle of Main. And you ought to think about taking a room at the Sugartree tonight, boss."
"I'll be all right."
"Hey, you get caught by a slide driving up that mountain and you'll be in the quarry before you know what hit you."
"Goodnight, Hageman."
"Yeah, yeah, what's an old fart like me know? S'Like I'm talking to one of my kids."
His departure signaled the end of the meal and soon, Ana was alone at the table with Jimmy, watching him choke down the last of his food.
"What's up?" she asked, thinking that all the flowers she and Jimmy had just finished planting not one damn week ago were all doing to die in this flood. Fucking Mammon.
"Nothing. Nothing bad, anyway." He hesitated, his gaze wandering out the window and down the street to Hank's Hardware on the corner lot. There was an odd wistfulness to his expression, as if there were nothing in the world he wanted more than a forty-pound bag of chicken feed for $17.99.
But that wasn't right, was it? He wasn't looking at Mammon's overpriced, understocked home-garden-and-feed store like he wanted to go there, he was looking at it like he thought he'd never go there again.
And just as this thought struck, Jimmy said, "I got a job offer Saturday. Cold-called me out of nowhere."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I was playing with the girls when Kaya called me in. There's me in my drippy swim trunks and some guy is telling me there's a six-figure salary that comes with a four-bedroom house in Helsinki if I want it. That's in Finland," he added and uttered a gulping, uncomfortable sound more like a burp than a laugh. "I had to look it up to be sure."
"What kind of job?"
"I don't…really know? The company has something to do with technology, which I know nothing about, but I guess what they want is a liaison for the various people that are flying in for…I don't know, demonstrations? Meetings? I'd book their hotels and get them…whatever, tickets to the theater or reservations at restaurants. I don't have to meet the people or do the entertaining, just do the purchasing. With someone else's money! I mean…it's got to be the world's easiest job, right? I'd have to be an idiot to say no, right?"
"Did you?"
"I said I had to talk it over with my family, but, sheesh, what's to talk about? Me and Kaya spent the weekend just trying to figure out if it was a joke or something, it's so…but it's not! They sent me all this information on, like, the house and the city. And Helsinki's one of the top ten best places in the world to live, according to the internet. Culture, low crime, good schools and healthcare. And it's…it's the chance of a lifetime! I just…" His haunted gaze tracked a lone car on Main Street from the park all the way to the bank, where it turned off and disappeared from sight. "I never thought I'd leave this town. After my mission, I mean, and that was just to Fort Worth, not exactly the other end of the world. I was so happy to be back, but ever since, it's been…"
The rain fell, hitting the window as hard as stones, smearing the world outside out of focus.
"I don't know," he said finally. "It's just…not a nice place. I don't mean it turned bad either, I mean…I mean it's like it's always been bad and I never knew it until I met Kaya. She sees it. And I see it around her. And around you." His eyes flicked toward her and away, ashamed. "But is that what to do about it? Just leave? That's not right. I can't do that. And I wouldn't even know how to tell my folks."
"Send 'em a postcard when you get to Helsinki."
"You're joking, but I'd be tempted. My mom would die, I just know it. And my sister is going to say Kaya put me up to it and make life heck…well, heckier for her right up until we go. And Shelly…I'd have to quit," he groaned, rubbing at his face. "I've never had to quit a job in my entire life. I don't even know how! Do I write a letter? Do I tell him in person? When? Do I really have to wait and dump it on him just two weeks before we go or should I tell him now so he can hire a replacement? And what about moving? How do I even move our stuff overseas? Oh! Passports! We'd have to get passports! Or do I immigrate? How does being an American in a foreign country even work?"
"Well, that part's easy," Ana remarked. "I'm sure if you call the guy back, he'll hook you up with what you need to know about work visas and dual citizenship or whatever."
"No, it's impossible. I'm not doing it. I can't. I'd have to learn a whole other language and I don't even know what language they speak in Finland!"
"I'm guessing Finnish."
"My whole family is here," Jimmy said, thumping both hands quietly but with force on the table. "And what if I go and the job doesn't work out? I'd be stranded in another country with three kids and no skills! I can't do this. I've got to say no. I've got to. I'm not doing it. It's a lot of money, but there's more to life than money, right?"
Ana made sympathetic noises, although she couldn't help but notice that hidden in all that What-if and Never-happen was a whole lot of I'm-thinking-about-it.
"What…What would you do?" Jimmy asked tentatively.
Ana shrugged. "What I thought was best for me, I'm sure, but that doesn't mean it's best for you. I've never had a wife and kids to worry about. I've also done a lot of moving, taken a lot of jobs for the first time, started over in a lot of towns and had it go south on me. All I can tell you is, it was never the end of the world. Hard, yeah, but not the end. Waiting for the worst to happen is always worse than the worst ever is."
Jimmy decoded that, then took a deep breath and breathed it out along with most of his tension. He looked out the window as the storm picked up strength, watching whitecaps lap at the cub as water washed down the street. "Hageman's right," he said suddenly. "All the young ones are leaving."
"And yet life goes on."
"Does it? There's no more Gallifreys to take over when Tim and Lucy retire. No more Greens to run the dealership after Eustace goes. No more Taylors after Fred closes the hobby shop. No more Webbs once Betty hangs up her apron at the Donut Hole. Shelly's boys all moved away and got into other work. Little Paulie was supposedly coming back after his apprenticeship, although I can't imagine he will now after…you know. Shelly would rather burn the business down and salt the earth than sell it to Villart, so once he retires, there goes Shelton Contractors. Villart will be building everything then, assuming Villart sticks around at all once his lease runs out, and what's he going to build anyway? I haven't seen a new business open since…"
Thunder grumbled.
"I've…never…seen a new business open," Jimmy said, staring blankly into the unnatural twilight of the storm. "They just…relocate. Or close. You know…You know, I don't think this town is going to be here at all in twenty years."
"All towns have a life-span," said Ana.
"Not like this. It's not even like it's dying, it's like something's killing it."
Ana made some more noises, but said nothing.
"They should fill in the quarry," Jimmy said at last, decisively. "That would help. Get rid of that stink and then build the theme park the old man promised."
"What, here?"
"Why not? Disneyland was built in the middle of the desert."
"Disney was orange groves. You're thinking of Vegas."
"Same thing. Can't you just see it? Lights and music and happy people—"
"Crowds and crime and traffic and pollution—"
"You're right," Jimmy said and sighed. "But what about just a plain pizzeria? Maybe that would be enough to turn things around."
"No pizzeria is going to revitalize an entire town, I don't care who the mascots are."
"You never went there. You don't know. Those things were amazing. People were coming from all over."
"Yeah, I'm sure they were, back then," she said pointedly. "But these days, we've got digital music, hi-def TV and VR video games in the privacy of our own homes. It's tough for the Chuck E. Cheeses of the world to compete with that. It's even getting tough for Disneyland, I hear, and they have rides."
"Freddy's was better," Jimmy insisted. He sat for a while, contemplating the town through the streaky window. "You should think about it."
"What, opening my own Freddy's? Yeah, I don't know what they're saying in town, but my aunt's house was full of rats, newspapers and taco-holders, not bags of money. What makes you think I could buy a pizza place, much less run one?"
Jimmy was already shaking his head. "I mean think about what you're going to do when Shelly folds. You know it's going to happen sooner or later."
Ana didn't argue, merely shrugged. "I'll get by. I always do."
"And if you don't?" he pressed.
"Then I'll roll on back to California and pick up where I left off. But that's not going to happen. Shelly doesn't have to be the greatest contractor that ever lived. He'll have a business as long as this town is still around."
"Yeah, but wait a minute." Jimmy leaned over the table, looking troubled. "Mammon will only be around as long as the old man lives. You know that, right? And if he's already at the falling-down phase of his life…I mean, lots of people younger than him just don't come back from an injury like that. And I don't know if anyone is thinking about that, you know? Everyone complains about how hard it's getting, but I don't know if they've thought about how much harder it'll be when he's not there to buy their house at whatever price they put on it when they decide to move. Or…Or hand out dream jobs in Helsinki. People here have never had to feel desperate, you know? Not like they will when they really do have no way out. Not like…like Big Paulie did. You know?"
After a long moment, Ana nodded.
"And I know he's helping you out. The old man, I mean. I'm not saying him and you…I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying…as bad as things are right now, they're going to get worse when he's gone." A blush began to creep up from the neck of Jimmy's company shirt, turning his boyish face an ugly shade of purplish-red. "For you especially."
"Me? What did I do now?"
"What did you ever do? We're not bad people," Jimmy said unhappily. "We're really not. But even good people can get the wrong idea about someone. Multiply that by two or three generations and…and you're not going to change anyone's mind."
"As long as they don't come marching up the mountain with torches and pitchforks, I think I can handle it. Go on, get out of here while that cute little Camry of yours can still drive in this mess."
Jimmy got up, turning his worried eyes out at the storm as a new volley of thunder shook the windows. "You sure you want to risk going up the mountain tonight? We got a fold-out in the rec room."
"No, thanks."
"You sure?" he pressed. "Kaya won't mind and I promise none of the relatives will be there. The girls will be in bed by nine and I'll even let you have a root beer."
"Rain check," said Ana while the rain poured down in frothing sheets.
Jimmy retreated, giving her doubtful looks all the way to the door, while Ana politely ignored him and ate a few of his leftover fries. Once he was gone, she stashed a few napkins and sugars for her morning coffee in her day pack, then picked up the check. She took in the damage, glanced at the date, started to open her wallet, blinked and looked at the date again. 8-12, it said in Lucy's harried handwriting. August 12th. Her birthday. God, it snuck up on her every year and it wasn't like she didn't have plenty of reminders lately. It was the access code, sort of, to Faust's home security system and the backstage area at Freddy's, after all.
Freddy's…
On impulse, Ana pulled out her phone and gave Freddy a call.
"I keep forgetting to turn off the vibrations," he grumbled after the second ring. "You have no idea what that's like. I feel them in my teeth."
"And hello to you, too," said Ana lightly. "How are the roads looking out there?"
"Wait." His footsteps sounded in her ear, dull at first and interrupted by a few creaking hinges as he bulled his way through various doors, then obliterated by the racket of wind as he let himself out the main doors, bold as a flashing neon sign to anyone driving by the bluff, except that who would be, in this weather? "Passable, for now, but there's a significant wash beginning to happen down by the turnout to the quarry." The noise of the storm increased as he turned so that the wind was aimed directly into the phone's speaker, then abruptly silenced with the banging of the lobby doors. "Do you live on this road?"
"Yeah, up on the mountain," she said, surprised. "You didn't know?"
"I suspected. I almost never see anyone driving on it, apart from you. But it doesn't look very safe tonight. Are you going to stay in town?"
"I was thinking I might stay at your place, if that's all right with you."
Freddy grunted one of his rare I-approve-of-this-decision grunts, then raised his voice in answer to a half-heard inquiry: "I'm not talking to myself, I'm on the phone…With 1-900-SEXY-BEARS, of course. With Ana! Who else on Earth would I possibly be talking to?…Bonnie says hi," he said flatly.
"Tell him hi. See you soon."
"Be safe. Ana returns your hello," he said, away from the mic. "No, you can't talk to her, she needs to drive…Because it's my phone, that's why! She'll be here soon and you can talk to her then…Oh, for heaven's sake, it's still on. How do I turned this damned thing—"
The call ended.
Shaking her head, Ana put her phone away. While she waited at the register, she studied the photos on the wall. Four generations of Gallifrey, going all the way back to Betty and Joe-Bob themselves, proudly holding the first black-and-white dollar they'd ever made between them while a couple kids sucking down malts at the counter looked back to see what the commotion was…and wait, was that…?
It was. That skinny kid eating a sundae half as big as his head was Mr. Faust, back when he was still just Fred or even Freddy. She couldn't guess how old he was in this picture, but she had no doubt he was small for his age and every part of him conveyed the awkwardness of that size and that age, preserved here for all posterity. The toes of his loafers dangled well above the checkered tiles. His clothes were absurdly neat for a child, but didn't fit him very well. He sat with his back very straight and his head slightly hunched, as if the flash of the camera had caught him mid-flinch. His blond hair was shiny with whatever he'd used to try and tame it, but it was no good; thick locks peeled up all over his head in ridiculous flyaway spikes, giving him a perpetual look of fright in spite of his shy smile.
So. If this was Fred Faust, then the teenager sitting beside him with one arm causally thrown around his narrow shoulders was Erik Metzger. He was bent forward, pointing at the camera and saying something in little Freddy's ear…and looking so much like David would have looked at sixteen that it hurt Ana's heart. And sitting on his other side, watching over his boys with a fatherly smile while his gaze wandered toward Betty Gallifrey's round ass, that was Viktor Metzger.
Listening to Mike Schmidt recount the old man's notorious reputation, Ana had wondered how the man had continued raking in the pussy well into his seventies and eighties, but looking at him now, she understood. He had been a neurosurgeon in the war, according to Mike, something that took a certain amount of time and schooling, which meant he could not have possibly been less than fifty in this photo, and yet, he could have easily passed as his son's slightly older brother. And handsome, if not as preternaturally good-looking as Erik had been. The whole damn family aged like Dorian Grey.
"Register, mother!" Tiny Tim called and across the diner, Lucy hollered, "Just leave it, hon!"
Ana folded her check around four twenties and left it under the Gallifrey family moneyholder—a smooth river rock painted to look like a ladybug. That was leaving a hell of a tip, but whatever, she was still getting off damned light for feeding a hungry construction crew. She stepped aside to let the next customer leave his money, but didn't go just yet, instead moving around the cashier station to stare at more photos.
She found no more pictures with Fred or Erik in them—none at all, which seemed statistically improbable—but she did discover one photo with two blurry little girls hiding in the background. Their backs were to the camera as they huddled together by the jukebox, but they were the same height, wore the same dress, had the same long fair hair tied up with ribbons. Sisters? Twins, possibly? Was this Marion and Melanie Blaylock, just six or seven years old?
The idea captivated her. What special occasion were they dressed up for? What was the song they were looking to play? Were they holding hands or just standing very close and out of focus? Did they like each other back then? Did they giggle in the back of the classroom and pass notes? Did they cry together when other kids teased them for being the bastard children of Jesselyn, who hadn't loved them enough to stay after her son vanished at Fredbear's? Did they whisper under their covers at night, making plans to avenge the brother they could not remember, or did they just close their eyes and pretend to be far away in a house where the bedroom doors had locks?
"Can I get you something else?"
Ana woke as from a dream, blinking around to see Lucy Gallifrey at her elbow, although her arms were laden with plates and customers were waiting. She felt her stomach knot and heat rise in her face, like she'd been caught dipping into the till instead of looking at pictures that were, for God's sake, hanging on the wall in a public place. But when Ana looked again at the photo with the two little girls in the background by the jukebox, she noticed that in the foreground, the actual subject of the picture was a much younger Tiny Tim in his cook's whites, grinning that uneasy this-is-just-a-summer-job-right? grin as a clearly ailing Joe-Bob handed him an apron. She'd been staring at a picture of another woman's husband for a good five minutes.
'Nothing good can come of this,' Ana thought, but she motioned at the wall of photos and said, "I haven't seen Iris around since I got back. She still in town?"
Lucy stared at her. In the kitchen, Tiny Tim looked up from his stovetop. At the tables, dining patrons dined on and chatting ones chatted louder.
"Why?" asked Lucy finally. One word, pulled thin and honed sharp.
Nope, this was not going to end well at all. Ana mentally slammed that door and opened the escape hatch with the first lie that came to mind.
"She used to look out for me," said Ana, thinking of that little girl in her pretty dresses and ribbons, just one more face in a ring of laughing faces, one more voice in a laughing crowd. "When the other kids would tease me. You know how kids are. She was older than me, so when she'd stand up for me, the other kids would back off."
Lucy's tight-pressed lips parted slightly. Her cool eyes first thawed, then misted.
"I don't know if she even remembers, but stuff like that means a lot to a kid who, you know, doesn't have a lot of friends. I'm not trying to pry," Ana said, backing up to prove her non-invasive intent. "I just thought if she was around and wasn't busy, we could catch up. But I guess, um, just tell her I said hi."
And Lucy said, "I will."
Ana stopped fading toward the door. "So she's around? How have I not seen her?"
"She moved away when she married," Lucy replied like that was the most normal thing in the world, because it was. "But I'm sure she'd like to hear from you."
Ana stared at her for a moment before belatedly jumping for the register and picking a pen out of the cup providing them. "Yeah, sure," she said, fighting a surge of in appropriate laughter. Another name to cross off Mike Schmidt's list. Iris Gallifrey was alive and well and about to receive a pretty confusing phone call from her mom concerning some playground heroics that never happened. "Here's my cell and my email. So she got married? I don't know why I'm surprised. Everyone else from back then did but me. Do I know the guy?"
Lucy looked back at the kitchen—Tiny Tim had resumed cooking—then at the customers waiting for their meals, and then at Ana again. "Oh, you know…her and the Ulster boy. She was young and…and he was wild and…I suppose they'd decided they were living in some teenage movie where the parents don't approve and the only thing to do is run away together and never speak to us again." She tried to laugh, even as she dabbed at her eyes with the corner of a dish-towel (possibly the same on she'd snapped at Ana when she'd dared to walk in wearing a tight shirt with a low neckline). "Had one of those so-called weddings in Las Vegas. I don't suppose I can blame her for never coming back."
This was sounding less and less like Iris Gallifrey could really be crossed off Mike's list, and then Lucy said, "They're still in Vegas and still together. They've had a lot of hard times, more than their share, but they both work hard. I wish they'd visit, but…I can understand that, too. Certain small-minded people in this town cast her in the role of devil-child when she was growing up and she was having so much fun living up to it, she never stopped to think what would happen when it stopped being fun and all she had was the reputation. She was never bad," Lucy said quickly. "She just liked acting out. Heavy makeup and earrings everywhere but her ears, tight clothes and…"
"Tattoos?" Ana supplied, crookedly smiling.
A little color appeared in Lucy's cheeks. She took the paper with Ana's information on it and slipped it into the pocket of her apron. "I'll let Iris know you were asking after her. If she calls you, tell her…well, no, I don't suppose you'd ought to tell her anything, but if you were to ask for a picture or to see her on the Facepage or whatever it's called, I would…I would so much like to see that. To see what she looks like and if she has children…all of that. Just don't tell her it's for me or…or she might not, you know."
"I will," Ana promised.
Lucy nodded, turning away with her plates, only to hesitate and turn back. "My Iris was a good girl, no matter how she dressed or the company she kept," she said huskily, avoiding direct eye contact. "And you're a good girl, too."
"Thanks," said Ana after a startled pause.
Lucy seemed as if she might say more, but in the end, she simply nodded again and sent herself back to work, leaving Ana to push out into the storm with a small, silly smile on her face. Thirty years old—no, thirty-two, as of today, and she was finally someone's good girl.
