Sara looked at the framed photographs that lined the hallway, familiar scenes from her childhood. Cathy had put a fresh coat of paint on everything, but if the paint had not been recent, there would have been a large rectangle near the door that was lighter in color than the rest of the walclass="underline" Jeffrey and Sara’s wedding picture. Sara could still see it in her head-not the picture, but the actual day. The way the breeze stirred her hair, which miraculously had not frizzed in the humidity. Her pale blue dress and matching sandals. Jeffrey in dark pants and a white dress shirt, ironed so crisp that he hadn’t bothered to button the cuffs. They had been in the backyard of her parents’ house, the lake offering a spectacular sunset. Jeffrey’s hair was still damp from the shower, and when she put her head on his shoulder, she could smell the familiar scent of his skin.
“Hey, baby.” Eddie was standing on the bottom stair behind her. Sara turned around. She smiled, because she wasn’t used to having to look up to see her father.
He asked, “You get bad weather coming down?”
“Not too bad.”
“I guess you took the bypass?”
“Yep.”
He stared at her, a sad smile on his face. Eddie had loved Jeffrey like a son. Every time he spoke to Sara, she felt his loss in double measure.
“You know,” he began, “you’re getting to be just as beautiful as your mother.”
She could feel her cheeks redden from the compliment. “I’ve missed you, Daddy.”
He took her hand in his, kissed her palm, then pressed it over his heart. “You hear about the two hats hanging on a peg by the door?”
She laughed. “No. What about them?”
“One says to the other, ‘You stay here. I’ll go on a head.’”
Sara shook her head at the bad pun. “Daddy, that’s awful.”
The phone rang, the old-fashioned sound of an actual ringing bell filling the house. There were two telephones in the Linton home: one in the kitchen and one upstairs in the master bedroom. The girls were only allowed to use the one in the kitchen, and the cord was so long from being stretched into the pantry or outside, or anywhere else there might be an infinitesimal bit of privacy, that it had lost all of its curl.
“Sara!” Cathy called. “Julie is on the phone for you.”
Eddie patted her arm. “Go.”
She walked down the hall and into the kitchen, which was so beautiful that she froze mid-stride. “Holy crap.”
Tessa said, “Wait till you see the pool.”
Sara ran her hand along the new center island. “This is marble.” Previously, the Linton décor had favored Brady Bunch orange tiles and knotty pine cabinetry. She turned around and saw the new refrigerator. “Is that Sub-Zero?”
“Sara.” Cathy held out the phone, the only thing in the kitchen that had not been updated.
She exchanged an outraged look with Tessa as she put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Dr. Linton?”
“Speaking.” She opened the door on the cherry wall cabinet, marveling at the antique glass panels. There was no answer on the phone. She said, “Hello? This is Dr. Linton.”
“Ma’am? I’m sorry. This is Julie Smith. Can you hear me okay?”
The connection was bad, obviously a cell phone. It didn’t help matters that the girl was speaking barely above a whisper. Sara didn’t recognize the name, though she guessed from the twangy accent that Julie had grown up in one of the poorer areas of town. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry. I’m calling from work and I gotta be quiet.”
Sara felt her brow furrow. “I can hear you fine. What do you need?”
“I know you don’t know me, and I’m sorry to be calling you like this, but you have a patient named Tommy Braham. You know Tommy, don’t you?”
Sara ran through all the Tommys she could think of, then came up not with a face, but with a disposition. He was just another young boy who’d had myriad office visits for the sorts of things you would expect: a bead shoved up his nose. A watermelon seed in his ear. Unspecified belly aches on important school days. He stuck out mostly because his father, not his mother, had always brought him to the clinic, an unusual occurrence in Sara’s experience.
Sara told the girl, “I remember Tommy. How’s he doing?”
“That’s the thing.” She went quiet, and Sara could hear water running in the background. She waited it out until the girl continued, “Sorry. Like I was saying, he’s in trouble. I wouldn’t have called, but he told me to. He texted me from prison.”
“Prison?” Sara felt her heart sink. She hated to hear when one of her kids turned out bad, even if she couldn’t quite recall what he looked like. “What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything, ma’am. That’s the point.”
“Okay.” Sara rephrased the question. “What was he convicted of?”
“Nothing as far as I know. He doesn’t even know if he’s arrested or what.”
Sara assumed the girl had confused prison with jail. “He’s at the police station on Main Street?” Tessa shot her a look and Sara shrugged, helpless to explain.
Julie told her, “Yes, ma’am. They got him downtown.”
“Okay, what do they think he did?”
“I guess they think he killed Allison, but there ain’t no way he-”
“Murder.” Sara did not let her finish the sentence. “I’m not sure what he wants me to do.” She felt compelled to add, “For this sort of situation, he needs a lawyer, not a doctor.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know the difference between a doctor and a lawyer.” Julie didn’t sound insulted by Sara’s clarification. “It’s just that he said he really needed someone who would listen to him, because they don’t believe that he was with Pippy all night, and he said that you were the only one who ever listened to him, and that one cop, she’s been really hard on him. She keeps staring at him like-”
Sara put her hand to her throat. “What cop?”
“I’m not sure. Some lady.”
That narrowed things down enough. Sara tried not to sound cold. “I really can’t get involved in this, Julie. If Tommy has been arrested, then by law, they have to provide him with a lawyer. Tell him to ask for Buddy Conford. He’s very good at helping people in these sorts of situations. All right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She sounded disappointed, but not surprised. “Okay, then. I told him I’d try.”
“Well…” Sara did not know what else to say. “Good luck. To both of you.”
“Thank you, ma’am, and like I said, I’m sorry to bother you’uns over the holiday.”
“It’s all right.” Sara waited for the girl to respond, but there was only the sound of a flushing toilet, then a dead line.
Tessa asked, “What was that about?”
Sara hung up the phone and sat down at the table. “One of my old patients is in jail. They think he killed somebody. Not Brad-someone named Allison.”
Tessa asked, “Which patient was she calling about? I bet it’s the boy who stabbed Brad.”
Cathy slammed the refrigerator door to express her disapproval.
Still, Tessa pressed, “What’s his name?”
Sara studiously avoided her mother’s disapproving gaze. “Tommy Braham.”
“That’s the one. Mama, didn’t he used to cut our grass?”
Cathy gave a clipped “Yes,” not adding anything else to the conversation.
Sara said, “For the life of me, I can’t remember what he looks like. Not too bright. I think his father is an electrician. Why can’t I remember his face?”
Cathy tsked her tongue as she spread Duke’s mayonnaise onto slices of white bread. “Age will do that to you.”
Tessa smiled smugly. “You should know.”
Cathy made a biting retort, but Sara tuned out the exchange. She strained to remember more details about Tommy Braham, trying to place him. His father stuck out more than the son; a gruff, muscled man who was uncomfortable being at the clinic, as if he found the public act of caring for his son to be emasculating. The wife had run off-Sara remembered that at least. There had been quite a scandal around her departure, mostly because she had left in the middle of the night with the youth minister of the Primitive Baptist church.