Chapter 23: Joan

I went down in Mitch's shirt and my jeans, with my hair in a knot.

The bakery was warm and nearly empty.

My mother sat at the corner table by the window with a cup of tea she had not touched.

She wore the gray cardigan, and there was no cream suit anywhere.

She looked smaller than I remembered.

"Willa," she said.

I sat across from her.

The baker set a coffee in front of me.

Then he went back behind the counter and found something very urgent to do with a tray.

"I won't keep you," Mom said. "I know you have someone upstairs."

"I do."

"I'm glad it's him." She said it to the tea.

"He sat in my lobby for three hours with flowers in his hand, and I told my son to send him away."

She turned the cup a quarter turn.

"I've thought about those flowers more than I've thought about the car."

I did not say anything.

She opened her purse and took out a plastic bag.

Inside were a great many small pieces of white paper.

"I said I would rip it up myself," she said. "I did it on Monday. It took a while."

I looked at the bag.

The pieces had a lawyer's heading on them, and a number, and my name.

"The lawsuit is withdrawn too," she said. "The papers are in the mail. You don't have to do anything."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me." Her voice was flat. "I'd have gone on until the building was gone."

She looked at me.

"You were the one who made it stop."

"Where are you living?"

"A room over a dry cleaner on Fourth. I've been there since Saturday."

She gave a small dry smile.