busted too.”
she got up, put an arm against his shoulder as she tested the ankle.
“I thought private practice paid better than that.”
“It does, I’ve just never been able to handle money. You’ know that.”
That was true enough; she had always balanced the checkbook. Not that
there was much to balance back then.
He held on to one of her arms as she limped to his car, a ten-year-old
Subaru wagon. She looked at it amazed.
“You never got rid of this thing?”
“Hey, there’s a lot of miles left on it. Besides, it’s full of history.
See that stain right over there? Your Dairy Queen butterscotch-dipped
ice cream cone, 1986, the night before my tax final. You couldn’t sleep,
and I wouldn’t study anymore. You remember? You took that curve too
fast.”
“You have a bad case of selective memory. As I recall you poured your
milkshake down my back because I was complaining about the heat.”
“Oh, that too.” They laughed and got in the car.
She examined the stain more closely, looked around the interior. So much
coming back to her in big, lumpy waves.
She glanced at the back seat. Her eyebrows went up. If that space could
only talk. She turned back to see him looking at her, and found herself
blushing.
They pulled off into the light traffic and headed east. Kate felt
nervous, but not uncomfortable, as if it were four years ago and they
had merely jumped in the car to get some coffee or the paper or have
breakfast at the Corner in Charlottesville or at one of the cafes
sprinkled around Capitol Rill. But that was years ago she had to remind
herself That was not the present. The present was very different. She
rolled the window down slightly.
Jack kept one eye on traffic, and one eye on her. Their meeting hadn’t
been accidental. She had run on the Mail, that very route in fact, since
they had moved to D.C. and lived in that little walk-up in Southeast
near Eastern Market.
That morning Jack had woken up with a desperation he had not felt since
Kate had left him four years ago when it dawned on him about a week
after she had gone that she wasn’t coming back. Now with his wedding
looming ahead, he had decided that he had to see Kate, somehow. He would
not, could not, let that light die out, not yet. It was quite likely
that he was the only one of the two who sensed any illumination left.
And while he might not have the courage to leave a message on her
answering machine, he had decided that if he was meant to find her out
here on the Mail amidst all the tourists and locals, then he would. He
had let it 90 at that.
Until their collision, he had been running for an hour, looking for the
face in that framed scanning the crowds, I minutes before their photo.
He had spotted her about five t already doubled beabrupt meeting. If his
heart rate hadn’
it would’ve hit that mark as soon as he cause of the exercise, saw her
moving effortlessly along. He hadn’t meant to sprain her ankle, but then
that was why she was sitting in his car; it was the reason he was
driving her home.
Kate pulled her hair back and tied it in a ponytail, using a braid that
had been on her wrist- “So how’s work going?”
“Okay.” He did not want to talk about work. “How’s your old man?” than
me.” She did not want to talk “You’d know bet about her father. -I
haven’t seen him since.
“Lucky you.” She lapsed into silence.
Jack shook his head at the stupidity of bringing up Luther.
He had hoped for a reconciliation between father and daughter over the
years. That obviously had not happened.
“I hear great things about you over at the Commonwealth’s Attorney.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
“Since when.”
“Everyone grows up, Kate-”
“Not Jack Graham. Please, God, no He turned right onto Constitution, and
made his way toward Union Station. Then he caught himself. He knew which
direction to go, a fact he did not want to share with her. “I’m kind of