Then my eyes came back and I answered, “Not much.”

He grinned.

I continued, “Then again, no one was on the street to see me and it’s only two doors down.”

“About fifteen cars passed us, baby.”

“Yeah, but they don’t count seein’ as I didn’t really notice them so in my head they don’t actually exist.”

He was still grinning when the door opened and Dad stood there. His expression was not good in a way that was really not good and both Colt and I got stiff simultaneously.

“Colt,” Dad said, “fuck, son, I’m sorry but I think you need to get out here.”

“What?” Colt asked and I watched Dad twist his neck, extending it in a way I’d seen before, not often but he did it when something happened he didn’t like, something that upset him or something that worried him.

His eyes hit Colt and he said, “Your Ma’s here.”

This was such a shock I felt my head move forward with a jerk as my eyes grew wide.

“His mother?” I asked.

Dad shook his head but said, “Yeah, darlin’.” Then he looked at Colt. “She’s askin’ for you and Jackie’s circlin’. Morrie and Dee’re tryin’ to get her to move on but she’s resistant and it’s workin’ Jackie up, I can see it, she’s gonna blow. We can’t get rid of Mary and we’re losin’ hold on keepin’ Jackie from goin’ ballistic. Sorry, Colt, wouldn’t ask you this if I didn’t have to, you know that, but I need you to come deal with your mother.”

I looked up at Colt and saw his face was blank but stony.

Although most things about Colt had been shielded from me by pretty much everyone, I knew a lot about what had happened with Ted and Mary Colton the last twenty-odd years. One of those things I knew was that Colt hadn’t seen his mother in years and never spoke to her.

Colt had attended my wedding to Pete because he was that kind of person, responsible, doing the right thing, even though I hated him being there as much as it was obvious he hated it and he left the reception before we cut the cake.

I hadn’t attended his wedding to Melanie even though Melanie sent me an invitation. This was because I was irresponsible and rarely did the right thing but also because I was weak and I knew deep down there was no way I could handle it. I sent them a wedding gift from their registry that cost more than I could afford at the time but I did it anyway thinking I was making some kind of idiot point that was probably lost on them.

I’d also heard from Mom, who was furious about it, that Mary Colton had showed at the wedding. She’d been trashed out of her gourd and started to make a scene, blathering on, apparently (this I heard not from Mom but from Jessie) about how the wedding was a farce and Colt was meant to marry me. She luckily didn’t make it into the church, she did this outside and then Colt, Dad, Morrie and Sully got rid of her with Jimbo driving her home. Colt had somehow shielded Melanie from it and, as far as I knew, she never heard a word about it happening. Even back then, thinking I had no right, when Mom called to tell me this happened, and Jessie augmented the information, the knowledge pissed me off to such an extreme that I was glad I wasn’t there because I knew there was no telling what I’d do if I was.

Before Colt and I broke up, but long after he’d moved out of his Mom and Dad’s house, Ted Colton hit two kids while drunk driving and killed them both. Colt and I knew the kids. They were good kids, never got into trouble. The girl was named Jenny and she won the Spirit of Junior Miss at the Junior Miss Pageant the fall before. The boy was named Mike and he was an ace shortstop for the high school team. They’d been dating for ages and were on their way back from a late movie at the mall. They were seniors in high school but I’d been in school with them both for two years before I graduated. Colt and I didn’t know them well, but we knew them.

By this time, Colt was far removed from Ted and Mary Colton. In all eyes, he was a bona fide member of the Owens clan and had been long before he moved into our house. Therefore, no one even looked at him askance when this happened.

Still, Colt knew their blood ran in his veins and his Dad killing two kids cut Colt to the quick. With me at his side, he attended both funerals and for weeks he slid into a darkness that I worried he’d never come out of. But he did when he applied to the Police Academy. He’d always known that was what he wanted for his future but his father’s mindless act of violence spurred Colt to doing it.

After the accident, Ted Colton was in pretty bad shape too, but he survived. Once he was healthy, he went to trial then he went to prison. Years later, he got out on parole and went back due to parole violation, which consisted of twice being hauled in for drunk and disorderly, once being pulled over for a DUI and then there was the small matter of him never showing at parole meetings.

When he did his time, he got out again only to go back in when he robbed a liquor store, not their money, a box of booze. The man behind the counter saw him, called the cops and instead of stopping, Ted led them on a fifteen minute high speed chase through the streets of town that ended with Colt’s Dad driving through someone’s yard and into their living room. Luckily he caused no bodily harm not even to himself. Stupidly, he got out of the car, drunk off his ass, resisted arrest and he did this with a knife. Making matters worse, he had borrowed his neighbor’s car without their knowledge, which meant they were pretty pissed when they found out it was used during a burglary and wrecked during the ensuing chase. Therefore, they were happy to report it as stolen.

Ted Colton had always been a mean drunk but I’d never thought he was a stupid one.

Back to prison he went, where, as far as I knew, he was still rotting.

His Mom, though, had moved to a trailer park in the next town and how she managed to keep her trailer and her vodka and pill habit when I’d never known her to work a day in my life, I had no clue. But I didn’t doubt she did.

Dad turned to walk out the door and Colt and I followed. I did this quickly because Colt was moving fast. I caught up with him when we hit the bar, coming to his side and grabbing his hand. His eyes never left the woman who was standing at the bar but his fingers curled around my hand so tight I worried he’d break my bones. It took effort but I didn’t make a peep at the pain.

The bar was nearly silent, no buzz of conversation, only the jukebox playing. It was usually set low for the day crowd. We turned it up at night.

I was shocked at the vision of Mary Colton. She didn’t look like I always remembered her looking, unkempt, clothes wrinkled and sometimes not clean, skin sallow, hair in disarray. She looked clean, her hair cut and tidied. She had makeup on. She was wearing jeans and a sweater, both of them washed and well-kept, her jeans even looked ironed.

None of this hid the years of hard drinking and internal abuse her body had endured. She was too thin, her hair, although tidy, looked bristly and there were steel gray roots exposed at her part, the rest of it a fake dark brown that was obviously a home dye job in dire need of a refresh. Her face was lined, her skin sagging, her hands were thin and deeply veined, the knuckles seemed huge, the bones were visible, all of this making her hands look like claws.

My Mom, not too far away and staring daggers at Mary, looked the picture of youth and vitality next to Colt’s Mom. They were close to the same age but Mom looked thirty years younger.

Mary turned to watch us walk up to her. I saw her take us both in, her eyes dropping to our linked hands and then they closed, slowly, almost like she was suffering some kind of internal pain.

Then she opened her eyes and Colt stopped us three feet away.

“Alec,” she said, her voice deep, rasping and unfeminine from years of chain smoking.

I felt my body give a jerk when I heard her call Colt that name and I swore, in his bed or out of it, I’d never call him that again. I finally understood why he hated it. Said by her, it was hideous.

“There something I can help you with, Ma?” Colt asked.

She hitched her purse up on her shoulder and shifted on her feet.

Then she said, “I been hearin’ some things.”

“Yeah?” Colt asked, even though this was a prompt, the way he said it communicated that he didn’t particularly want a response nor did he care what that would be.

She looked at me then tipped her head back to look at Colt and I noticed she’d shrunk, significantly. Both Ted and Mary had been tall, which was why Colt was tall. I stared at her, trying to see some beauty in her, racking my brain to remember her when she was younger, to remember Colt’s Dad, trying to figure out how this person and her husband made a man like Colt and I couldn’t see it.

“I heard you sorted things with Feb,” she said.

“I did,” Colt replied, his answer short, not initiating further discussion.

“I’m glad,” she told him but he didn’t respond so she looked at me and said, “For both of you.”

I didn’t know what to say but I thought I should say something so I muttered, “Thank you, Mrs. Colton.”

She nodded, I went quiet and Colt stayed silent.

“I heard other things too,” she went on, looking back to Colt.

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Colt told her and her brows twitched.

“You safe?” she asked.

“Yes,” Colt lied instantly.

Her head moved to the side, almost like Dad’s had done, her neck slowly twisting and extending. She knew he was lying.

Then she straightened her neck, took in a breath and announced, “Your father’s gettin’ outta prison.”

“Good for him,” Colt said but he didn’t sound pleased, he sounded courteous in that way people were courteous when they were in a position where they were forced to be polite but they really couldn’t care less.

“He’s dried out, Alec. We both have. For good this time. We found the church,” she told him.

“Good for you too,” Colt’s tone hadn’t changed.

She bit her bottom lip, exposing her teeth, not like Colt did when he was angry. She was anxious and Colt wasn’t giving her anything to go on.

Then she said, “I thought you might like to know, maybe you might like to –”

Mom cut her off by saying, “He wouldn’t.”

Mary turned to Mom, moving slowly still, cautious, uncertain and maybe even scared or perhaps shy and she said quietly, “Jackie.”

“You got a helluva nerve walkin’ in here, Mary Colton,” Mom told her and Dad moved closer to Mom.

“I’m tryin’ to do right,” Mary said to Mom.

Mom let out a short, breathy, angry laugh before she asked, “Do right?”

“Jackie,” Colt murmured.

But Mary said over him, “Yeah, Jackie, do right.”

“Well, you’re forty-four years too late,” Mom snapped.

“Jackie, darlin’, let’s you and me go to the office,” Dad said.

“Not leavin’ Colt in here with her,” Mom said back.

“Jackie, he’s –” Dad stopped talking because Mom gave him a look and it was the kind of look that would make anyone stop talking, even Dad. Then Dad’s gaze shifted to Colt and Mom’s shifted back to Mary.

I decided to wade in before Mom really let loose and I took a small step forward but didn’t let go of Colt’s hand.

“Mrs. Colton,” I called and she turned back to look at me, “it was nice of you to come by today and let us know about Mr. Colton. But how ‘bout you go on home and you give Colt a chance to think about all this. You want, you can come with me to the office, I’ll get your number. He wants to call, he’ll get in touch. That sound okay?”

Colt’s hand squeezed mine and I squeezed back. Through this Mary looked back and forth between Colt and me.

Then she said, “All right, Feb. That sounds fine.”

I gestured behind me with my head and said, “Let’s go.”

I released Colt’s hand but my eyes moved to his as I turned to the office. His face was still blank and stony, nothing there to read, giving nothing away. If he looked at his mother like that, it was a wonder she didn’t run out the door.

I walked to the office and Mary followed me. Standing by the desk, looking awkward and out of place, her hand clamped around her purse strap and clenching it convulsively, she gave me her phone number while I wrote it on a pad on the desk.

When I was done writing the number, I straightened but saw she was looking at the closed door.

Then she turned back to me and, hand still clenching and unclenching her purse strap, she said in a rush, “I heard you were interviewed by the FBI. I heard your ex-husband was killed in St. Louis. I heard the police were at your apartment. I heard Chip Judd’s been workin’ at Alec’s place, puttin’ in a system. I heard a lotta things, February.” Her eyes were getting bright and I could see the whites of her knuckles, she was clenching her purse strap so tight. “He lied to me out there, Alec did. You’re not safe.”