“Oh, right. Yeah. Um—” I slapped a hand to my forehead. The driver had parked and gotten out of the car to open the trunk, which meant I needed to get out of the dang car too. “I’ll have to summarize quickly, because I just got to my brother’s house. But my new roommate, who works forBig Apple Mag, told me today that she found Francis’s name in the visitor log at the magazine. He was in their office sometime within the last four weeks. I know the brothers think I leaked their sensitive information via my new roommate, but I didn’t. And now there’s a sign that it might have been Francis after all. I just need you to tell them that. We parted on bad terms, but I don’t want to see them continue with someone untrustworthy, no matter how things ended for me.”
“Thank you, Jessa. That’s very sweet of you. I’ll pass it along.”
“And Cora? One more thing.” I nibbled on my lip, wondering if I should even go there. “Do you think Damian has a drinking problem?”
A soft sigh erupted from her. “I think he self-medicates with whiskey for the stress. And I’ve seen him doing that more since the SEC investigation came around.”
“Thank you, Cora,” I whispered. “I just want Damian to feel good. But sometimes I think that man is his own worst enemy.”
I swiped the phone off and hurried out of the car, apologizing profusely to the driver, who already had my things out on the gravel driveway. The front door clanged open, and my nieces tumbled out of the house in their pink puffy winter coats, screaming “Aunt Jessa! Aunt Jessa!”
A moment later, four arms were wrapped around my torso and hips, giggles and shrieks filling the air.
Jeremy stepped out onto the cement block porch in his deer hunting coat, smiling wearily, his dark brown hair grown out so far he could almost tuck it behind his ears.
“Hey there, big brother.” I waddled his way, my nieces still attached to my midsection, arms outstretched. “Join the pile.”
“I missed you, Jessa.” He wrapped his arms around me, forming a Walton group hug. We all laughed. “God, you look different.”
“Do I?” I stepped back to size him up, finding the familiar signs of exhaustion and worry on his face. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“You look like a big city girl,” he admitted with a small laugh. “Look at this purse. How much did this cost?”
“I got it at a thrift store,” I said, swatting his arm before he grabbed my luggage and headed for the house. “That’s the key to New York City. Find the right thrift stores, and you can score big. That or renting the runway.”
“You can rent a runway?” Izzy scrunched up her nose, looking at me like I’d just told her the moon was made of cheese. “What does that even mean?”
We walked toward the small brick ranch while I explained the concept of renting fashionable clothes that were too expensive to buy, especially if you only needed them for a single event. Inside the house, everything was dark and cramped. Jeremy’s threadbare couch faced an oversized TV—the main form of relaxation for my brother—and dolls littered the floor.
“Where’s Chelsea?” Jeremy and his wife Chelsea had been together for a lifetime—they’d started dating in the seventh grade and never broken up.
“Ah, she’s uh…” Jeremy sighed, then clamped his mouth shut as the girls raced around us. “Girls, go get Aunt Jessa some cookies from the kitchen. Go on, now.”
The girls scampered off, and I turned to my brother, sensing something amiss.
“Where’s Chels?” I repeated.
He frowned when he looked over at me. “She’s been staying with a friend.”
Understanding shivered through me. “For how long?”
“A few weeks.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He laughed emptily. “I didn’t want to believe it.”
“What sort of…friend?”
The girls rushed back into the room, sharing the duty of presenting me with a plate of cookies. “Aunt Jessa, your cookies are here!”
“The kind of friend you’d imagine,” Jeremy said dryly.
Shit bricks.I needed more details, but I got the gist well enough. I popped on a smile as my nieces doled out cookies between all of us. We munched happily, though Jeremy’s smile was strained.
We spent that first evening together enjoying time as a family. My dad came over for dinner, and we shared chicken wings while we watched football on TV. Just like always.
But we couldn’t go on forever like that, avoiding talk about my mom or Tara. Monday morning, after the kids had gotten on the school bus and Jeremy was racing around to get ready for work, Tara showed up.