Chapter 7: The Aunt

I took the coffee he handed me and drank it.

"How was the meeting?" Elias asked.

"Educational," I said.

He waited for more.

I gave him a small tight smile and looked out the windshield.

For the first time in fourteen months, I did not tell my husband the truth about my day.

It felt like carrying a hot pan across a room.

By evening, I still had not dropped it.

The knock on the street door came at six, sharp and precise, three raps.

Elias went down to answer and came up the stairs again looking oddly ill.

Behind him climbed a woman in a camel coat with a grey-streaked bun and a canvas tote the size of a suitcase.

She carried a casserole dish in both hands, covered in foil.

"Kasey," Elias said. "This is my aunt Alma."

"My father's sister," said the woman in a flat Midwestern voice, like a weather report. "I was in the neighborhood."

"From where?" I asked, pleasantly.

"The neighborhood," she said, and handed me the casserole.

It was surprisingly good.

Tuna, with potato chips on top, the kind of thing I'd been told only existed in church basements.

We ate at the tiny kitchen table with our elbows touching.

Alma ate with great concentration and said nothing for five minutes, until she set down her fork.

"Mr. R," she said. "Your wife is extremely well-informed about the Huddleston matter."

Elias choked on his water.

Alma did not blink.

"Mister Elias," she corrected. "Mr. Elias, my nephew. I was addressing him formally. It's a family habit."

"Is it," I said.

"My side of the family is very formal."

"Aunt Alma works in an office," Elias said, too fast. "Downtown. In Chicago. In, ah, paperwork."

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