Page 104 of His Turn

It’s an insult she’s not expecting because it makes her recoil.

I take out my wallet, throw two twenties down on the small table near the door, then place the truck key on top of them. “There’s fast food places in town. Knock yourself out if you’re hungry.”

And then I take off my coat, my suit coat, and flop down on the bed farthest from the door, face first. Praying that she takes me up on my offer and leaves me alone.

I have no idea what she does. I sleep. I sleep like a man who needs to forget. And when I wake, it’s my niece’s voice that draws me back to the living.

“Uncle Elias?” she says, shaking my shoulder.

“Hmmm?” I ask, taking a moment as the memory of where I’m at and why I’m here floods in.

“It’s after six. We have to go. Are you still driving me home?”

I look up and turn, taking in the room. “Where’s Nadia?” I ask.

“She’s in the truck. She said she’ll drive me home if you don’t want to.”

Fuck that. Like hell that bitch is gonna go sneak her way into my life. “No,” I say, sitting up. “I’m coming. Give me a few minutes to clean up, OK?” I smile at my niece because she looks worried. She looks… she looks like she doesn’t know me.

She doesn’t. None of them do.

“I’ll wait in the truck,” she says, then pulls the door open and closes it, leaving behind a rush of cold air.

Winter in Montana. Probably the thing I hate most about this place.

And yet… here I am.

I wash my face, doing my best not to look at myself in the mirror, then decide my rumpled pants and wrinkled shirt aren’t appropriate and change into my blue suit. The black is for tomorrow. For the funeral.

Fucking Luc.

The truck smells like food when I get in. My stomach rumbles in a painful way when Mandy offers me a burger wrapped in foil. “It’s still hot,” she says. “We just picked them up before I woke you.”

Nadia is in the back seat. So when I look over my shoulder to back the truck up, I ask her, “Did you have fun today with my niece?”

“Yes,” Nadia says, smiling at Mandy in the front seat next to me. “She sent me on eight errands.”

I raise my eyebrows at Mandy. She just shrugs. “I had a grocery list from Mother. And Lettie needed medicine.”

Yeah. This is gonna be a fucking blast.

“I hope it’s not too much trouble to feed me tonight,” Nadia says.

Mandy laughs. “We won’t even notice you, Nadia. Until you tell everyone you’re a famous ballerina, that is.”

“I’m not famous,” Nadia says, her face lit up with a smile. She seems more at ease with my niece than she’s ever been with me. “But it is kinda cool.”

“My sister Becca wants to be a ballerina. She studies at a school in Seattle.”

And then the conversation takes off from there and requires no more input from me.

By the time I pull down the long driveway to the house—if you can call that monstrosity of logs a house—Nadia and Mandy are practically best friends.

Why not? They’re almost the same fucking age.

What the fuck am I doing here?

Luc is dead, Elias.