Laughter shook her very delightful br**sts. “That’s very cute.” He frowned and then bared his teeth. “Cute? I’m a badass, Elise. I ride a Harley and have tattoos.”

She laughed even harder. “I-I’m sure you are if the situation calls for it. But you’re a very sweet man beneath the tattoos.” “Sweet.” He snorted, amused by her.

Rolling into him, she pushed him back to the mattress and kissed his face several times. “There’s not a damned thing wrong with sweet. Sweet is very underrated.”

He laughed. “Ha! Chicks only want sweet for their platonic male friends.”

She sobered up and he traced the curve of her bottom lip. “Did I hit a nerve?”

Shaking her head, she dropped a kiss on his shoulder. “Old wounds.”

Old wounds. Yeah, something like that. She thought of those words as she worked over the next week. Wondered about how and when it had gone so wrong for her. Wondered if she’d ever not have her time with Ken hanging around her neck like a millstone.

Rennie sat at the kitchen table doing her homework while Elise folded laundry. The phone rang and she smiled at the number.

“Hello, Mama.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about this mess with Ken’s parents?” her mother demanded.

“I’m gonna take these clothes up to your room and put them on your bed. You know which drawers they go in. I’ll be back.” She grabbed the basket and headed away from listening ears.

“What’s going on? Have they been bothering you?” she asked once she’d gotten to Rennie’s room.

“You answer my question first, Elise.” Her mother’s imperious tone made Elise smile. It was easy now, with a few thousand miles between them, to be amused.

“I didn’t tell you because you two had enough to deal with. There’s nothing you can do and it would have upset you. Now, what happened?”

“This is why you wanted us to stay in New York until Daddy had retired. I can’t believe you didn’t tell us! We’re your parents. We have a right to know so we can support you. Didn’t you know we would have helped in any way?”

“I did. I do. I swear to you. After Matthias . . . You just had so much to deal with, and then the murder. It’s over anyway. Now, tell me.” She sat on Rennie’s bed, a froth of pink lace and stuffed animals lined up in an orderly fashion.

“She called today. That evil cow. Said you’d been refusing to let them have their monthly phone call with Irene. Said they’d sue us if we didn’t help. Imagine my surprise to hear that they’d been threatening to ruin your new school and to take Irene out of the U.S. to raise her without her mother. Imagine her surprise to my response when she threatened to harm Daddy’s professorship. People like them make me crazy. However, you not sharing drives me crazy too. I don’t care what she says. You’re our child, Irene is our grandbaby; they won’t harm you through us.”

Elise couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of her mother telling off Bettina Sorenson. “I’m sorry. I just . . . Mama, these people are dangerous. You don’t need it.”

She hated them. Hated the Sorensons. Hated her kid getting sick at having to speak to them. Hated them for hurting her parents.

“Their son was the problem. Their son! I don’t need it, pish. Elise, you don’t get to decide what I need.” This was followed by a twominute-long, profanity-laced rant, all in French, wherein Elise was schooled on what her job was and how they were her parents so therefore Elise needed to obey them and stop hiding things.

Her father took the phone. “She’ll be that way for a while. We’re coming out for a visit over Thanksgiving. I know we invited you back here to visit, but your mother and I decided it’s best to keep you two out west. I don’t want those vile Sorensons anywhere near you or Rennie. We’ll plan to stay for a week, during which we will be looking for a house.”

Her head began to pound and tears of frustration threatened. “Daddy, really, it’s not necessary. They’re not a threat. I have sole custody and I haven’t refused anything. They call at random and I say no. They upset her every time they call, so I keep it to once a month. She gets cranky, cries for no reason, gets stomachaches. I wouldn’t do it at all, but I want to comply with everything so they can never have anything to use against me. I feel like I’m not protecting her, but I don’t know what else I can do without making things worse.”

“We’re coming. You’ll pick us up from the airport. Your mother says you have her services all week long at the studio. We love you, Elise. We miss you and we miss that baby. Your mother can teach piano anywhere, and I’m an old man who can find young people to adore him anywhere too. You need us. We need you.”

She smiled through tears. She needed them so much; even at her age, she needed them. But Ken had been part of what happened to Matthias, had been part of that long slide into oblivion, and even though she and Ken had been estranged and Ken had been doing a stint in county jail when Matthias overdosed, the guilt of it still colored her perceptions.

“Momma, can I come up now?” Rennie hollered from the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m coming down,” she told Rennie before turning back to her father. “Rennie knows you’re on the phone, you want to talk to her?”

Her father laughed and her mother got on the other line. “I’m finished with the bad words now. We’ll see you in a month and you well tell us the whole story when we arrive.”