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Chapter Four

“I responded to the online missing-persons registry with my name and phone number and when I received a call from Jed Crane, I told him that I had known a Nora Crane in Seattle, but I told him I doubted it was the Nora Crane he was looking for—I said I thought the woman I knew was around thirty years old. And I couldn’t provide an address. He was very forthcoming—he’s been looking for you for a couple of years. Nora, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this—he’s trying to find you because your mother passed away. I couldn’t ask for details without giving you away and there’s nothing on public record about the cause of her death.”

She went instantly pale. “Dead?”

He nodded gravely. “I think we should arrange a meeting with your father. Apparently he has lots of information about your mother and none about you. He said he lost custody of you when you were only four years old.”

“He wanted custody?” she asked, in a state of shock.

“So he says.”

“But I was six. I’m sure I was six—it was first grade. I remember exactly what I did at school that day—I came home and asked where Daddy was and my mother said she didn’t know. That he’d left us.” And so often over the years her mother, Therese, had added that he was no good, that they were better off. She said that getting involved with that man was the biggest mistake of her life, with no regard for how it might make Nora feel.

“I really think you have to look into this,” Noah said.

“But what if he’s a bad person? What if he abused me like my mother said?”

“I believe I can keep you safe. I know you’re not going to throw your trust into him before you have all the evidence you need that he deserves it. If you don’t want to see him on home turf, I’d be willing to take you to the Bay Area or somewhere in between to meet with him. If what he’s saying is true or even partially true, he must have some documentation—marriage license, divorce papers, photos, something. Obviously without documentation, you don’t necessarily have to believe him.”

“But…but is she really dead? My mother?”

“Therese Alice Sealy Crane, age sixty two years ago?”

She nodded numbly.

“There is a public record of her death. I’m so sorry, Nora.”

“She hated me,” Nora said in a whisper, as though it was a shameful secret.

Noah was shaking his head. “Maybe she had a difficult time showing affection or love. Maybe there were things you didn’t understand when you were a girl. Maybe her best effort at being a good mother was just not very good at all.”

“Or maybe she hated me,” Nora said.

“Right now you have more questions than answers. Consider looking for some of those answers. What’s the worst-case scenario? That everything you think you know about your parents is true? To verify that rather than wonder—that could help set you on a path of rebuilding your life.”

“I’m not that strong,” she said.

Noah actually gave a little laugh. “Oh, you’re by far one of the strongest women I know. And the most gentle. But I leave this entirely to you—just know that I’m here for you, willing to be your partner in this next step.”

“I don’t know. I’m going to have to think about it.”

“Go ahead and think about it. Your father didn’t hint at any urgency in contacting you… .”

“There you go—urgency! What if he’s only looking for me because he needs a kidney or something? What if he wants to make amends for doing terrible things to me that I was too young to remember? I’m better off not knowing, right? Because all those hard years with my mother were bad enough without adding more awful stuff… .”

“Just think it over and if you want to talk about it, we can talk it through before you make a decision. The good news is we can find him easily. And he wants to be found.”

* * *

Just think it over? Nora could think of nothing else the following week and picking apples was the perfect job—she could indulge in obsessive remembering while filling up her bag.

There were very few times while growing up that Nora braved her mother’s emotional outbursts to ask questions about her father or express her desire to know him. It was a dicey proposition; Nora was never sure whether Therese would rage, “How can you keep putting me through this? Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?” Or she might cry, “I’ve done my best for you, rescued you from a horrible father, can’t you just be grateful for what you have and stop torturing me?” And there was always the chance she’d just slap her and scream, “I should’ve just let him take you, then you’d know what real abuse is!”

She had no idea the nature of this abuse her mother put on her father, but she knew exactly what kind of abuse she suffered at her mother’s hands. Her mother had dramatic mood swings and she was never sure which woman was coming home from work each day. It could be the Therese in an upbeat mood with plans for a treat, like pizza for dinner and an evening of watching all their favorite TV shows or it could be the woman in a foul temper who blamed the stress of her work, a long day of listening to screwed-up crazy people’s problems. Or, sadly, one of the best options was when her mother went out after work, meeting friends for dinner or a movie or shopping, friends that Nora rarely got to know because it was so seldom Therese brought them home.

She struggled to remember when she fully realized that Therese almost never had a girlfriend who lasted a whole year, and Nora understood why. Therese was difficult, selfish, short-tempered and completely unpredictable. She was also very funny at times—she could certainly make people laugh when she wasn’t in a snit. She was attractive and well turned out and had a great singing voice she exercised when in a happy state. When Therese laughed and sang, Nora held her breath, afraid to let herself enjoy it.

But Nora was probably all of seven or eight when she began saying I will not be like my mother over and over to herself. When she found herself pregnant with Berry she was terrified that something would happen to her and she’d wake up one morning finding she hated her child, discovering she couldn’t control her anger.

* * *

Noah turned up at her house after work three evenings during that week, just to give her an opportunity to talk. News of her mother’s death brought out all these issues she had with her mother, which she told Noah.

“But what about this father of mine?” Nora asked. “Right in the area and never a phone call? Never any contact, any help to deflect some of my mother’s more cruel moments?”

“Yet another thing to ask, to try to understand,” Noah said.

“He’s either a very bad man or a very negligent man,” Nora said. “He had a daughter! Shouldn’t he have done something? Was my mother right? That I was better off? Because it’s hard to imagine being better off alone with her.”

“When you’re ready, you can ask these questions,” Noah said.

“I have a full-time job, thank God,” she said. “I can’t leave the kids with Adie and leave town. And I’m not letting him anywhere near my children.”

“All these concerns are resolvable. Once you settle on a day—a day that I can take you—I’ll ask Ellie to help out with the girls. She’s wonderful with babies and was a huge help to Vanessa Haggerty when she adopted a nine-month-old before her eighteen-month-old was out of diapers.” Noah laughed and shook his head. “It was insane—and all turned out well. Remember Paul Haggerty? He plowed the roads in town last Christmas and sent one of his crews over to your house to seal the windows and doors.”

“Listen, I don’t need everyone in town knowing that Nora Crane has yet another crisis, that I’m from a crazier background than they even imagined.”

“I know it sometimes seems that way, Nora—that everyone else has a normal, average, functional life and only you have stuff to work out. Believe me, I know the feeling. But really, it’s not that way. I come from a pretty crazy family, and poor Ellie—she had such trials growing up, taking care of her kids alone before we met. When you get to know her better, you can ask—Ellie is very up-front about everything. For right now, let’s think about the challenge you’re facing. You need to see your father. Talk to him. Ask him questions. Ask for some documentation that he’s really your father, that your parents were divorced and he chose not to see you, et cetera. First find out what he has to say and then let’s work on understanding what happened.”

“I won’t put my girls at risk,” she said.

“Absolutely not,” Noah agreed. “Whenever you’re ready.”

* * *

Of course Nora told her closest girlfriends what was going on—Adie and Martha, both in their seventies, and Leslie, the much younger neighbor a few doors down. Those three women had included Nora in gab sessions on the porch and shared stories and it happened they agreed with Noah—that she should face her father with her questions.

Of course she hadn’t mentioned anything at the orchard. She didn’t feel close enough to anyone there to talk about her personal business. In fact she had been so preoccupied thinking about her mother’s death and her father’s reappearance, she did her job mechanically, the hours passing like minutes while her mind was in another place.

She showed up at the crossroad of 36 and the road to Virgin River and there sat that familiar big white truck. And there he was, leaning against it. Waiting.

“Wow,” she said, stopped in her tracks.

“Hop in,” Tom invited.

She went around the front of the truck and climbed up and in the cab. “I bet when your grandmother forced you to hire me, you didn’t foresee taxi service.”

“Is everything all right, Nora?” he asked before starting the truck.

She was startled by the question. No, things were not all right. But it was personal business. It had nothing to do with her job. “Fine,” she said. “Why?”

“You’ve been really quiet,” he said.

He’d noticed? she wondered. “I have?” she asked.

He nodded. “Your muscles okay? Back, shoulders, et cetera?”

“Yes. No problems. Why are you quizzing me?”

“I don’t mean to pry, but I thought I should ask because… Well, you had some injuries before and kept it to yourself.”

“I don’t have any injuries.”

“You probably don’t realize it—but the first couple of weeks at the orchard, you had a hard time keeping up, but you laughed. You also hummed a lot—I kept thinking you were going to break into song or something. We could hear you all over the place. Maxie could hear you from the back porch and she said things like, ‘That girl’s good to have around—she’s happy in her heart.’ I had no idea what you had to be so happy about, but we all got used to hearing you—and then you stopped. So I thought…wondered…”

Her mouth was hanging open. It took her a moment to recover from her shock. “Wait a minute,” she said. “When did you start to care if I was happy or not?”

“It’s not exactly like that,” he said. “I know you need the job to support your family because you told me you did and I know you go to a lot of trouble to prove yourself. And I know you’ve been quiet lately. I wanted to be sure you weren’t hurt or sick or maybe in trouble.”

“I didn’t even know I did that,” she said. “I was so damn relieved to have a job that actually put food on the table, I guess I was in a pretty good mood. I hum? Really? And you actually noticed?”

He hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand in apparent frustration. “Excuse me for being sensitive,” he grumbled. “I’m not a bad guy, I’m just a guy and one of my employees is—”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said. She ran her hands through her hair, removing and replacing the ponytail tie. “It’s been a very strange week. I’m estranged from my parents—my father left when I was little and I fell out with my mother when I was nineteen. I just found out my mother died two years ago, cause unknown. And my missing father has been looking for me. I’ve had a lot on my mind. I’ll try to laugh more if it’ll make you feel better.”

And now it was his turn to be silent. Shocked. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. I don’t usually talk about all that personal stuff. And I’m kind of sorry I just did, to tell the truth. I’m pretty sure I have the most screwed-up family on the planet and really, I don’t advertise that.”

And he laughed.

“This is funny to you?” she asked.

“Not at all. Coincidental, that’s all. Who would think we’d share something so bizarre—like screwed-up family?”

“I know Maxie a little bit and she is amazing,” Nora said.

“You bet she is. When I was born my dad was a test pilot in the Air Force, out in the high desert, Edwards Air Force Base. He flew spooky new jets. My mother was at the end of her rope with the living conditions, the lifestyle, all that went with his job, plus she was really young and I guess I wasn’t exactly planned. So, when I was a month old she brought me to Maxie and said, ‘Here. You take care of him. This was all a mistake.’ And off she went. I might know more about her except my dad was killed in a crash a couple of months later. I have no memory of either of them. So, there you go—we both have some unusual family histories. I hear my dad was a normal guy, but who knows what’s in the other gene pool. I don’t know anything at all about my mother.” He took a pause. “But I’ll tell you this—if she showed up all of a sudden, I’d have some questions.”

She was speechless. Why was it that everyone else’s life always seemed so easy, so flawless?

He pulled onto the road, heading for the orchard. Nora watched his profile. He was smiling. This was a hard man to read—he could be so kind, so generous and thoughtful, but she had also seen him glower as if just seconds from an outburst. Perhaps, she thought, being raised by Therese left her fearful of a frown. Surely not everyone came apart at the seams if something displeased them—that certainly wasn’t the case with her.

Tom pulled up to the barn and parked. He jumped out and she followed more slowly. When he got to the door to his office, he turned and looked at her. “You okay?” he asked.

She took a breath. “That was nice of you, to tell me that. It made me feel a little less…I don’t know…a little less like a loser.”

He actually laughed. “How long have you lived here?”

“Eight months.”

“If I hadn’t told you, someone else would have. Everyone knows. And everyone talks.”

“Right,” she said.

He turned to walk away and she said to his back, “So what would you ask her? Your mother? If she turned up suddenly?”

He pivoted. “I guess I’d ask her if she had any regrets.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Makes sense.”

“How about you?” he fired at her.

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Any regrets? About finding yourself a single, twenty-three-year-old apple-picking mother?”

Remarkably, coming from him, she took no offense. After all, they shared some difficult history. And she was going to have to get used to that very thing he said—that everyone knew and everyone talked. “About having my daughters?” She shook her head. “I could never regret having them. They’re miracles. About not having them after being married to a handsome, rich investment banker for about six years? Yeah, that’s regrettable.”

That brought out his grin and she realized he had a very attractive dimple. Left cheek. “Investment banker, huh?”

“Okay, neurosurgeon. Astronaut. Computer genius. CEO of a Fortune 500 company.”

He laughed. In fact, he tilted his head back and guffawed, hands on his hips. “Damn, kid—an ordinary old apple grower wouldn’t stand a chance!”

She stared at him, watching him laugh at her for a long second. Then she headed for the office door. “I’ll make the coffee,” she said.

Well. If he’d been looking for something to take her mind off her current challenges, he’d certainly done it with that statement. He probably had no idea what a luxury it seemed to someone like her to raise a family in the healthy and pristine beauty of these mountains, in a great big house right in the middle of a delicious orchard. Or the fantasies it could inspire to think about being wanted by a man like Tom Cavanaugh.

He drove her back to the road to Virgin River after her shift. “You can’t do this every day,” she said. “It’s too much.”

“It’s two miles,” he replied. “And when you get a ride, you pick more fruit.”

“Well, I have to admire a man who knows what he wants,” she said. Then she jumped out of the truck and headed for home. Even though Adie was expecting her, she stopped at the church, looking for Reverend Kincaid.

She stood in his office doorway and waited until he looked up. “If that offer is still open, I’d like to set up a meeting with my father. If you’ll contact him and go with me.”

“Be happy to,” he said. “Any particular day?”

“Doesn’t matter to me. Weekend, if he’s available and if you’re available. Saturday? I could take a day off I think, but I don’t want to do that to the Cavanaughs—work weekend overtime and take off on a regular pay day. But if that’s the only option, I think Tom Cavanaugh would give me a break.”

“I’ll call him,” Noah said. “Jed Crane, not Tom.”

“Tell him I want some kind of evidence—that he’s my father, that my mother is dead, that he’s employed… . I don’t know what to ask. I just want to be sure he’s not a fraud. Or a creep who’s just after something. I’m not sure I can remember his face.”

Noah stood from behind his desk. “I’m glad you’re doing this. No matter where it goes from here, you deserve some answers. I’ll ask Ellie to help with your girls.”

* * *

They chose a public park in Santa Rosa as a meeting place and Nora was so stressed out, she barely spoke all the way there. She did say, “Please don’t leave me alone with him and don’t mention that I have children.” Once Noah had to pull over because she was afraid she was going to throw up. When they got to the park at noon, Nora knew Jed immediately. The memory of him came back instantly—he was the same, though older. He was very tall, his brown hair was thin over a shiny crown with a lumpy shape, his eyes kind of sad, crinkling and sagging at the corners. He had thick, graying brows, had a bit of a soft center—a paunch—and wore his pants too high. And he wore a very unfashionable short-sleeved plaid shirt with a button-down collar that she thought she recognized from the last time she saw him.

Apparently he knew her right away because he immediately took a few anxious steps toward her. And then he opened his arms to her and she instinctively stepped back, out of his reach. That just did him in—he almost broke down. A huff of air escaped him and she thought he teared up. “I’m sorry,” he said. He carried a large padded envelope which he held out toward her. He swiped at invisible tears, embarrassed by this display. “I apologize, Nora,” he said. “I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

And what were her first words to her long-lost father? “Did you ever take me bowling? When I was too little to even think about bowling?”

Sudden laughter joined his tears. “I had no idea what a weekend father was supposed to do—so yes, I took you bowling. It was a disaster, but you seemed to have a fun time. Your ball never once made it to the pins. Here,” he said, pressing the big envelope on her. “Copies of all the papers Reverend Kincaid said you’d like to have.” Then he stuck out his hand to Noah. “Thank you for helping with this. Thank you so much.”

But Nora said, “Weekend father?”

“Let’s sit down somewhere,” Jed suggested. “There’s so much to catch up on.”

As he turned in the direction of a picnic table, Nora put out a hand to his forearm and stopped him. “Do you…” She faltered, then took a deep breath and asked, “Do you have any regrets?”

“Nothing but regrets, Nora. I just don’t know how I could’ve made things better for you.”

They found a table in the shade of a tree and even though there were lots of people around, began to forage through the past. “My mother said the bowling never happened. I remembered bowling, planting a garden, you reading me stories, that kind of thing, but she said…”

“It’s going to be so hard to explain her,” Jed said, shaking his head dismally.

“What’s in here?” she asked, holding up the envelope.

“Reverend Kincaid said you had no documentation at all, that you weren’t even sure your mother and I divorced. It’s all there—copies of the marriage license, the divorce decree, the order from the court that Therese retain custody and that I would have visitation one day a week. Then I lost even that. I had a few pictures—you as a newborn, your first birthday, a day in the park, the first day of preschool. I didn’t get many.”

“But why?” she asked. “Why did you leave us?”

He seemed to take a moment to compose himself. “I’ve wanted to explain and yet dreaded this moment for years,” he said. “Therese and I were at terrible odds—lots of conflict. I suggested a separation, suggested we might’ve made a mistake and could work it out amicably, and that did it. Pushed her right over the edge. I could say she threw me out, except that I’d already suggested separation. Her anger with me was phenomenal and I left because I’d had all I could take.

“I was over forty when we met and though I was plenty mature, I wasn’t exactly a ladies’ man. I had so little experience with women. We weren’t a young couple. We met, dated and got married too quickly because we were getting older and wanted children—your mother was forty when you were born. The sad truth is, we weren’t happy for long. She was sick when she was pregnant and suffered terrible depression when you were a baby and it took about a year for her to recover. Maybe she never did—I’m not sure. Therese was a loose cannon. I never knew what might set her off. She lashed out at me constantly. I suggested maybe motherhood didn’t make her as happy as she thought it might and that…” He shook his head and looked down. “I always seemed to say the wrong things.”

“Were you ever happy?” Nora asked.

“I thought so,” Jed answered. “At the very beginning. Then there were issues I thought had to do with pregnancy and new parenthood. But by the time a few years had passed, I knew we were doomed.

“But I thought she loved you, Nora. As long as I wasn’t around, she seemed to take good care of you. When I came home after work, you sparkled. You were so happy and showed no signs of suffering. I was afraid of what a life with her might do to you in the long run, but there didn’t seem to be much I could do.” He shrugged. “The truth is I was afraid you could become like her—so over the years I watched from a safe distance. I checked on your school progress, went to school events to catch a glimpse, asked questions about you. When Therese got wind that I was around, she lashed out, lost her temper. I was very circumspect, but I was never far away.”

“And I never saw you?”

He leaned toward her, his brows scrunched. “You might remember when your mother stopped talking to the lady next door,” he said.

“They had a fight,” Nora said. “I was never sure what that was about. Mom said she’d been insulted and accused of something. They stopped talking and I was not allowed to go to their house. Sometimes after school I’d say hello or we’d talk in the yard, before Mom got home from work, but we had a pact—we’d keep it our secret.”

“The fight was about me calling the neighbor and asking how you were, how things were going in my home, with my daughter. She let it slip. So, it kept Therese from talking to her neighbor, but it didn’t keep the neighbor from watching, from talking to me.” He swallowed hard. “She moved when you were about to graduate from high school. I lost my best connection to you.”

“This isn’t happening,” she said. “This is my worst nightmare. She was a therapist!”

“I’ve never understood that,” he said, shaking his head. “That should have guaranteed a certain level of stability. Civility. Understanding. I think she was crazier than half the people she counseled. What I’ve learned since is that, sadly, she was hardly the only inept counselor—they are plentiful. So are competent, helpful, talented counselors. There were times she raged at me in a way that made me think she was truly insane. Nora, there was something wrong. It’s been suggested by professionals I’ve seen that maybe she was a borderline personality—not mentally ill, but narcissistic, hostile, perhaps a bit sociopathic. Very manipulative. Successfully manipulative. Quite functional. We were like oil and water. I wanted to take you with me but she wouldn’t have it. There was something about me that set her off.”

“There was something about everyone…” Nora mumbled. “You could have at least called me.”

“I should have, but I didn’t want to force you to lie or be secretive. There’s no other way to put it—she was vengeful when she didn’t have her way. That worried me.”

“But you said you lost even your visitation,” Nora said.

“I did, but not in a legal action. I went to pick you up for our day together and you weren’t there. Things like that happened very often. And Therese started screaming at me, accusing me of terrible things and I lost my temper. I punched a hole in the wall. I don’t think I ever punched anything in my life before that, or after. I’m just not that kind of person.”

“I remember that hole!” Nora said. “She never fixed it!”

“She called the police and there I stood with banged-up knuckles. While you played at a friend’s house, I was taken away in handcuffs.”

“And then?”

He shook his head. “I knew it was bad for you, that it was never going to get better. There were so many fights and standoffs when I came to get you, I stopped coming. I didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how to protect you from that anger. I saw lawyers, but I wasn’t going to get custody of you and trying to see you only lit a fire in her. Therese had feuds with anyone who would talk to me. She was completely estranged from your aunts because they checked on you on my behalf. They haven’t spoken since you were seven or eight years old.”

“Aunts?” Nora said weakly.

“Therese was the youngest of three girls and a good many years separated them. Her eldest sister is deceased now, but Victoria is still alive, living in New Jersey. She was named in your mother’s will. And I didn’t know your mother had died until it came to my attention that checks I’d been sending for alimony and support weren’t being cashed. I don’t think there’s anything you can do about her will, I’m sorry.”

Nora put her head in her hands. “Checks? Will? Aunts? Oh, my God.” She looked pleadingly at Noah. “This is nuts. This can’t be true. She said there was no family, that there was never any support. I was on partial scholarship and I worked—my mother only paid for textbooks, nothing else.”

“You could’ve gone to Stanford for practically nothing,” Jed said. “I’m a professor there. Your mother said you had no interest.”

“I only went to college for a year.” She looked at Jed. “If this is true, she must have been completely insane.”

“I don’t think so,” Jed said. “At least not clinically. I’ve done a lot of reading and have talked to a few professionals—there are people who lie, manipulate, hold terrible grudges who are not mentally ill but have anger problems the rest of us just don’t understand. And what made her so angry? I have no idea.”

“And you couldn’t do anything?”

“Nora, she was completely functional. She held a full-time job, paid her bills, raised a child. You were clean and fed. You did all right in school. You seemed happy and had friends…unless I came around and the whole world went to hell…”

“She was a train wreck! She didn’t have friends, at least not for long. She lied about her family, about you. There was never a single picture of you in the house, not one. And why didn’t she get fired from her job? Explain that?”

“I don’t think she was well liked by everyone, but you have to understand that especially in a situation like hers, an educational institution, just being difficult and slightly dysfunctional on the job wasn’t going to get her fired. She knew how to do her job, and she had a great deal of seniority. I know she had problems from time to time, but for some reason there never seemed to be consequences. I can give you the names of a few coworkers—they might talk with you. In that envelope you’ll find a list of the books I read, trying to understand who she was. I can’t say I came to any conclusion—just a lot of guessing.”

“When did you get a divorce?” she asked.

“I moved out when you were four years old and we divorced quickly.”

“Why do I think I was six? That’s what I remember.”

“I stopped coming for you when you were six—those two years must have been the worst of your life—your mother and I fighting every time I came, hiding you from me, refusing to let you come with me. I never went to the house without a fierce battle. So I stopped.”

“I thought this might give me answers,” she said. And when she said that, Noah reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze.

“I’m so sorry,” Jed said. “You were used as a pawn and eventually I abandoned you, hoping that would set you free. I can’t imagine the trauma. Counseling might be in order. I’ve had a lot of it.”

“How could you trust a counselor? She was a counselor!”

“Listen, Nora—there are good and bad in every profession—doctors, lawyers, teachers—”

“Clergy,” Noah put in. “Jed’s right. And a lot of troubled people study counseling to try to figure out their own issues. I might’ve been guilty of that myself.”

Her eyes filled when she looked at Noah. “I’m exhausted. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life.”

“Maybe you and your father should continue all the questions and answers over the phone or computer. Take it one swallow at a time. You can use my computer at the church—we’ll set up an email account for you.” Noah glanced at Jed.

“Absolutely,” Jed said. “I don’t want to overwhelm you. I’m just so relieved to find you alive. One thing—is there anything you need? Is your health all right?”

She gave a nod. “And you?”

“Blood pressure medicine, statins for cholesterol—everything under control.”

“And you’re teaching?”

“At Stanford—history. I’ve been there twenty years now. I’d like to hear more about what you’re doing. When you’re ready. Everything you need to find me is in the envelope.”

“Thank you,” she said, hugging it to her. And without touching him, she turned away from him, heading back toward Noah’s truck. Then she stopped, turned back and said, “How did she die?”

“Complications of pneumonia. She went to the emergency room, was hospitalized and slipped away very quickly. I’m sorry, Nora.”

She nodded and went to the truck.

Noah stood and spoke with Jed for a few minutes while Nora just escaped. They were under way for several miles before she spoke. “All that driving for a thirty-minute meeting. I hope you’re not angry about that.”

“We agreed, the meeting was to be on your terms. No one else would control it—only you. I think you accomplished a lot. What do you think?”

“I think it was surreal. And I am completely drained.”

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