Chapter 9: The Pie Plate

Rory's POV

On Sunday morning I drove to Yonkers with a bag of bagels and a mark on my face that had finally faded.

I had not been able to stop thinking about the hand that put it there.

She hit hard for someone that small.

She had also looked at me across a diner table and said facts only, and I had been so relieved to be told what to do that I'd nearly thanked her.

My mother's house is a tidy white colonial with a Virgin Mary in the front garden and a church bulletin taped to the storm door.

I let myself in with the key I had never given back.

The kitchen smelled like butter and apples.

Three finished pies sat on the counter, and my mother stood at the sink in her blue apron, scrubbing a pan that was already clean.

"You're thin," she said, without turning around.

"I'm exactly the same."

"Sit."

I sat at the table I had done my homework on.

She set a plate in front of me, and a fork, and a slice of apple pie at nine in the morning.

I'm thirty-six years old, and a paramedic, and I ate it.

"Ma, I need to ask you something about Daphne."

She dried her hands slowly.

"I've been waiting for you to ask for three days."

"The hospital," I said. "Memorial Sloan Kettering. Did you ever go there for treatment?"

"Treatment for what?"

"Anything."

"I went for my lump, honey. At the other hospital, the one near the church, and the surgeon took it out and told me I was fine."

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