Chat - Archer Mayor [63]
“No,” she answered quietly. “I have my mom and a brother, Steve.”
“The other boy in the picture isn’t a brother?”
She nodded slowly, still gazing off. “He was. He and my father died at sea.”
He was taken aback, and felt badly for leading her there. “I’m sorry.”
She turned toward him again, her expression sad but open. “I am, too. I loved them both, in different ways. José was wild and funny and full of beans; my father was just the opposite. A rock. I see a lot of Dad in Coryn—both of them so steady. Losing them pretty much kicked my family in the head. Steve and my mom never recovered.”
“Where are they now?” Joe asked softy.
“Mom still lives in Gloucester,” she said briefly.
He considered asking more but realized that either it wouldn’t matter or that he’d find out later on. He hoped for the latter, if only because it meant some future for the two of them.
“Steve’s in jail,” she then added, almost as a challenge.
“Ouch,” he reacted. “That’s tough. I see what you mean—did all that start after the boat went down?”
She looked at him in silence for a couple of seconds, her mug cradled in her lap. “I guess that’s right,” she then said. “You’re used to these sob stories.”
She hadn’t said it harshly, but he answered with care nevertheless, feeling his way. “They aren’t sob stories, but I wish they were more rare.”
She nodded silently and took a meditative sip of her tea. “I’m sorry,” she murmured afterward.
“For what?”
“That all came out wrong. My dad and José died years ago, when I was still in my teens. It’s not like it’s fresh—or how Mom and Steve turned out. I don’t know why I threw it at you like that.”
“No damage done. We’ve got to get to know each other somehow. It won’t always be just right.”
“Is it right, though?” she asked. “So far? I don’t want to come across as someone I’m not—including how I just showed up out of the blue.”
“It feels right to me,” he told her simply. “You said from the start where you stood.” He laughed before adding, “And that it was basically nowhere in particular. I can live with that. I’m not without my own complications.”
Her hand suddenly flew to her forehead. “Jesus,” she said, “that’s right. How are they doing?”
He smiled back at her, wishing that were the extent of it. “I didn’t actually mean that, but they’re fine, or at least Mom is, physically, and Leo is still stable.”
“But she’s taking it hard,” Lyn suggested.
“They’re very close,” he answered.
She got that distant look back into her eyes. “So were Dad and José.”
“It was a storm?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“Yeah. I almost wish it was something more dramatic, like in that George Clooney movie. But it was just run-of-the-mill, a carbon copy of all the other storms that kill fishermen year after year.”
“Did they ever find them?”
“Not them, not the boat. Nothing.”
He stared at the fire for a while, reflecting how much harder that must have made it for the survivors, never knowing for sure what had happened.
“God, what a life,” he finally muttered.
“How come neither you nor Leo ever got married?” she asked after a while.
“I did,” he answered, his eyes still on the flames. “A long, long time ago. She died of cancer. We never had kids.”
“What was her name?”
“Ellen,” he said, letting the name drift around inside his head like a childhood prayer, never to be forgotten. “I didn’t feel like getting married again after that.”
He finally shifted his gaze to her. “What about you and Coryn’s dad?”
Lyn half smiled. “Nothing quite so romantic. We were no match made in heaven. Barely lasted three years. He stuck around for Coryn for a while after that; then he lost interest. Neither one of us has heard from him in years.”
“You still have his photo.”
She glanced across the room. “Yeah, well . . .” She left her thought unspoken.
Joe drained