Rosa tried to think of someone who’d stayed away from the funeral, perhaps out of guilt, but no one came to mind. Everyone they knew well had been there. Most had come by the house. Would her husband’s lover have the nerve to walk into Rosa’s home and offer condolences? Would Don have gotten involved with a woman who could do such a thing?
Her husband had been an outgoing man, a caring man. He’d always shouldered the customers’ problems as if they were his own. Just look at how he’d taken Matt in years ago, guiding him away from trouble and onto a respectable path.
There wasn’t a young person who’d grown up coming into Flamingo Diner that Don hadn’t taken an interest in. He’d counseled dozens of kids to stay in school, to steer clear of drugs. He’d listened to outpourings of teenage angst without judgment, offering advice when it was sought. He’d mended many a fence between stressed parents and belligerent kids.
So why hadn’t he been able to solve whatever problem he’d had in his own life? Whatever had been bothering him had to have been so huge, so overwhelming that he could see no other way out than suicide. Rosa couldn’t imagine anything that devastating, not even an affair he was desperate to hide.
Rosa rolled over and punched the pillow in frustration. This was getting her nowhere. Maybe she did need to get out of bed and go back to the diner and look each and every customer in the eye, see if she could read something in their expressions, detect some hint of guilt.
Not today, though. Maybe not even tomorrow.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to go back in time, to the night Don had proposed. A smile settled on her lips at the memory. He’d been so romantic, so dashing in his dark suit and crisp white shirt when he’d picked her up for dinner.
A snapshot of the two of them taken that night had always sat on the nightstand beside the bed, but she’d shoved it into a drawer on the day Matt had told her Don was dead. She reached for it now and dared to look at it, feeling the familiar swell of love and pride, then the oppressive sense of unbearable sorrow and loss.
“Oh, Don,” she whispered, gently touching the cool glass covering the photo. “How could you do this? We were supposed to be happy forever.”
That night they had certainly believed their love would last forever.
He’d taken her back to the nightclub where they’d met, a huge, noisy place with a Latin floor show and an orchestra for dancing. He had two left feet when it came to the intricate steps of the tango, but he’d tried, making her laugh, making her fall even more deeply in love.
Even though he was a native of Central Florida with very little experience with the Cuban culture, he’d embraced it during his years at the University of Miami. He was the only non-Latino man she’d ever met who could discuss Cuban politics with her exiled parents and, even more astonishing, do it in fluent Spanish. They had adored him.
“Te amo,” he’d whispered that night on the dance floor, when the music had turned to something slow and sultry.
Rosa remembered how her breath had hitched, how her heart had stood still as she’d gazed into those deep blue eyes. “I love you, too.”
“Enough to marry me?” he’d asked. “I want to take you with me when I go home after graduation. I want to make a life for us, have children.” He’d tucked a finger under her chin, his gaze unwavering. “Grow old together.”
The music had faded into the background, the noisy chatter of the other customers dimmed. It was only the two of them, their senses alive, their hearts pounding.
“Yes,” Rosa had whispered, then more exuberantly, “Yes!” She’d felt as if she were soaring, as light as a feather floating on the wind. There hadn’t been a doubt in her mind that Don Killian was her destiny.
The trouble with her parents that followed had been a shock. They loved Don, but they didn’t want their daughter to marry him, didn’t want her to move away from Miami. They found flaws in him that she’d barely even noticed and made them seem monumental. They’d pointed out that he wasn’t close to his family, that he gambled a little too much, that he drank.
“A glass of wine,” she’d retorted about the drinking. “And so what if he doesn’t get along with his family? He’ll have us now.”
The gambling had been harder to explain away. She’d confronted him about it and eventually convinced him to give it up. Her parents had remained skeptical. There were daunting battles and one terrifying moment when Rosa feared they had won, feared that the honorable man she loved would walk away from her because they didn’t have her parents’ approval.
He had come back for her the next day, though, and they had eloped and never looked back.
Eventually her parents had made peace with the decision. Their respect for Don had overcome their doubts about the two of them, but they had never once left Miami to come to visit. Because of that, they had missed out on so much, Rosa thought now, trying to imagine a day when she had grandchildren. Could she bear not to see them, not to watch them grow, not to spoil them?
She and Don had gone back to Miami a few times, but the visits were short. The children barely knew their maternal grandparents when they lost them one after the other. Andy had never even met his grandfather, who had died the year before he was born. And Jeff had been only seven when his grandmother had died. Only Emma had memories of both of them. Fond enough memories, Rosa assumed, since a doll they had given her still sat in her room.
If only they were here now to comfort her, Rosa thought wistfully, but maybe wherever they were, they were giving comfort to Don, comfort she hadn’t been able to give him here on earth.
This time when the tears began to fall, Rosa didn’t try to hold them back. Hot, scalding tears slid down her cheeks as she thought of all the wasted years, time they could have shared. He’d promised they would grow old together, and now she would have to do that alone. She might be able to forgive him for a lot of things, but not that. Never that.
The walls were starting to close in on Emma. She’d forgotten how exhausting it was to work ten hours straight at the diner. Even though she thoroughly enjoyed people, the sheer volume of customers started to get to her midway through the noon rush. This time there had been no savior in sight in the form of Matt. With Jeff nowhere to be found, Andy had done his best to help out, but he wasn’t as fast as his father had been or as glib as his mother. Nor could he handle waiting tables and working the register as deftly as Jeff.
Emma had been all too aware of the muttered complaints about the service, especially from the scattering of tourists who knew nothing of the family’s current struggles.
At the end of the day, she and Andy looked at each other, then sighed with relief when they locked the door behind the last of the customers.
“How about a soft drink?” Emma asked, hoping to coax him into spending a few minutes with her.
“Please,” he said, slumping down in a chair, looking as despondent as Emma had ever seen him. This normally upbeat kid was drawn and tight-lipped.
When she’d put his Coke in front of him and taken a sip of her own, he met her gaze.
“We’re not going to make it, are we?” he asked.
“Don’t be silly. Of course, we are,” she insisted. “This was just an incredibly busy day.”
“People were complaining.”
“I know. I heard them.”
“Can we hire more help?” he asked. “A couple of my friends might pitch in.”
Emma considered the idea, then dismissed it. They had to economize any way they could. They would have to manage on their own. “I don’t think so. We need every penny.”
Andy nodded, looking even more defeated.
“I’ll talk to Mama, tonight,” Emma promised. “If she came back, it would be a huge help.”
“What about Jeff?”
“Of course, we could use him, too, but I have no idea where he is.” She gazed into her brother’s eyes. “Do you?”
Andy shrugged. “Probably with that girl he’s been seeing.”
> That Jeff had a steady girlfriend was news to Emma, but she had been out of touch with him for a long time. “Is it anyone we know?”
“I’ve never seen her,” Andy admitted. “Neither have Mom and Dad. Jeff doesn’t say too much about her.”
Emma couldn’t help wondering why Jeff would be so secretive if the girl was someone special to him. “Do you have the impression it’s serious?”
Andy hesitated, looking torn. “I probably shouldn’t say anything. It’s not like I really know.”
“Know what? Andy, we’re on the same side here.”
“Are we?” he asked, his skepticism plain.
It was obvious he still didn’t entirely trust her, Emma thought with regret. He might never trust her again the way he once had. “Of course we’re on the same side. We both want what’s best for Jeff.”
“Then I don’t think it’s this girl,” Andy said.
“Why not?”
“I’m pretty sure they get together just to smoke pot and have sex. Jeff hasn’t said that exactly, just that she’s pretty wild and she’s hot, stuff like that.”
“I see,” Emma said wearily. Jeff wouldn’t be the first guy to choose a girl who liked to have fun over one who was more respectable or more appropriate. He was only twenty, after all, probably a long way from wanting to settle down.
It was just that right now, when he was filled with so much rage, a girl like that might tempt him into doing something that could ruin his life. They could end up arrested or, in some ways even worse, married.
“You’re not going to tell him I said anything, are you?” Andy asked, looking worried.
Emma forced a smile. “I know you’re still mad at me, but you know perfectly well that I never tattle.” She reached across the table and ruffled his hair. “I never told anyone it was you who broke Mama’s little porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary, remember?”
Andy flushed. “I’m still saying Hail Marys for that one. I should probably just confess to Mom.”
“Up to you,” Emma said. “But you might feel better, if you did, even if it was years and years ago. She loved that statue.”
“Because it was Abuela Conchita’s,” Andy said, his regret apparent. “She brought it from Cuba.”
“Tucked inside her bra,” Emma said, adding the footnote that always went with the story.
They fell silent then, sipping their soft drinks, trying to gather the strength necessary just to mop the floor and head home.
“Emma?”
“What?”
“Would it be better if we just sold this place like Mama and Jeff said?”
“Is that what you want?”
Andy regarded her with a forlorn expression. “I always thought I’d go to college and then come back and run it after Dad retired. I like working here. I like listening to what’s going on around town. There’s something special about Flamingo Diner, don’t you think?”
Emma tried to see what Andy saw, but she wasn’t entirely sure she did. She knew she hadn’t run across anyplace like it in Washington, but she hadn’t really looked. When she went out for a cup of coffee, she didn’t expect to have the shop owner greet her by name or ask about her work. All she wanted was decent coffee.
She could see, though, how people might come to a place like this and feel as if they were part of an extended family. For many of the seniors who stopped by, there was a comfort in knowing that Don or Rosa or one of the other regular customers would worry if they failed to show up, that someone would inevitably check on them.
Ever since the funeral, the customers had returned the favor, offering support of all kinds. At first Emma had been taken aback. She’d grown used to keeping her personal business to herself. But after a few days, she had taken comfort in the genuine outpouring of warmth and concern.
She met Andy’s gaze at last and slowly nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Flamingo Diner is a special place, and if it’s where you want to spend your future, then we’ll do whatever it takes to make that possible.”
Her brother’s expression brightened at once. “I wouldn’t really need to go to college, if I’m just going to run this place. I could learn everything I need to know right here. Jeff could teach me some of the business management stuff he’s learned.”
“You’re going to college,” Emma said flatly. “That’s what Dad wanted for you and a business degree certainly won’t hurt when it comes to keeping this place in the black.”
He laughed then, the sound music to her ears. It was the first unrestrained display of real emotion he’d allowed himself in front of her since he’d told her he hated her.
“You sound exactly like Dad,” he explained.
“Well, he was right about most things.”
The laughter immediately faded. “Not lately,” he said, sounding bleak. “He’d changed, Em. I told you that when I called you. Nothing I ever did was right. If there was any kind of mistake, he was always sure it was my fault. He didn’t ask, he just blamed me. It wasn’t like that before. He told me when I screwed up, but he was patient about it, you know? Lately, though, it was like everything was the end of the world.”
That certainly didn’t sound like her father. Emma had never known him to be either harsh or unfair. “Sweetie, there’s no question that he had something terrible weighing on him. I wish I’d listened to you and come home. Maybe he would have told me, but if he didn’t tell Mom, then I imagine he wouldn’t have said anything to me, either. Whatever that something was, it made him do and say things he didn’t mean. You have to forgive him.”
“Have you forgiven him for dying?” Andy asked pointedly.
Emma wished she could say with conviction that it hadn’t been his choice to die, but she couldn’t. All she could manage to say with honesty was that it was normal to be angry when someone died. She reached for her brother’s hand. “We’ll just have to work harder to get past the anger and hurt.”
And in the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to go looking for answers she knew were out there, because without them, forgiveness was going to be a whole lot more difficult.
9
Matt was sitting behind his desk when Emma came striding into his office, looking as if she were about to embark on a crusade for truth and justice. Despite her pallor, despite the evidence that she’d lost a few pounds she couldn’t spare since coming home, she still looked beautiful to him. But it was the shadows in her gorgeous dark-brown eyes that almost did him in. He could almost hate Don Killian for putting them there and for putting him in the position of having to give her news she most likely didn’t want to hear, despite her claims to the contrary.
“You have a minute?” she asked, sitting down opposite him without waiting for a reply.
“For you, always. What’s up?”
Now that she had his attention, she seemed to be at a loss for words.
“You’re here about your father,” he said, relieving her of the need to tell him.
She nodded, her expression grim. “Do you know anything more?”
“Anything conclusive beyond a doubt? No. I spoke with the medical examiner earlier. I think he’s going to come out with a ruling, probably later today, that it was an accident.”
A faint spark of hope filled her eyes, then faded. “But you don’t believe that, any more than I do, do you?”
“I’m sorry, Emma, but truthfully, no.”
“Did you tell the ME that?”
Matt met her gaze. “I thought about it.”
“And?”
“What would be the point? It wouldn’t change anything. It would only make your mother, Jeff and Andy even unhappier than they already are. I wish you could accept it and move on, too.”
She returned his gaze, looking torn. “I wish I could let it go. I really do,” she said. “But I can’t. I need answers. What convinced you it was a suicide?”
Matt told her about the tool found in the car’s console that would have allowed Don to free himself and escape from the car. “The
console wasn’t even open. To me, that was a dead giveaway, especially in light of the fact that there was no evidence that he’d suffered any injuries in the crash or that he’d had a heart attack or stroke. He died from drowning.”
“In other words, he just sat there and waited to die.” Emma swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “It must have been so horrible for him. Why would he do such a thing?”
Matt had been waiting for that question. Emma wasn’t the first person grieving over a sudden loss who had come to him for answers. He’d never had them before. He most assuredly didn’t have them now. He fell back on platitudes and statistics. “People who commit suicide are usually under a great deal of pressure. They don’t see any other way out. Sadly, it’s a permanent solution to what most likely is a temporary problem, but they can’t accept that.”
She frowned at him. “I could have read that in a book.”
He shrugged. That was exactly where he’d read it the first time he’d had to handle a suicide. In that case it had been a jumper, who’d refused to listen to any of the officers trying to intervene. At least with that man, they’d had a slim chance. Don had made sure no one could even try to talk him out of it. He’d driven to the lake alone, late at night, making certain that his nearly submerged car wouldn’t be discovered until it was too late.
“It’s the best I can do,” he told Emma. “I wish I had something concrete to tell you about your father.”
“But you knew him, Matt,” she protested. “You’ve been back awhile now. I imagine you’ve been in and out of the diner a thousand times. Surely you noticed something aside from the fact that he was short-tempered. Was he worried about something? Distracted? Anything at all unusual?”
As he had a hundred times recently, Matt thought back over the weeks leading up to Don’s death, but there was still only one clue. “The way he was snapping at your mom and Andy is the only thing that sticks out in my mind. I wish there were something more I could tell you, Emma.”
“If he was treating my mom and my brother like that, why didn’t you say something? Why did you just let it pass?” she asked, her voice rising.
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