12 - Maeve
Those words took me by surprise.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I blurted. “I didn’t know.”
I muttered more sympathies, hiding my own turmoil.
“I hadn’t mean to pry…”
Kathleen looked me over. A cloud passed, both in her eyes, almost the same gray as her cabinets, and outside, changing the amount of light entering from the window.
“In a way, Stella saved you.”
“I, I don’t understand. How could she, I mean, you saved me, and Stanley?”
The lanky woman lifted her cup, found it empty and let out a long sigh.
“I guess I don’t make much sense.”
So, in sparse words, Kathleen told what happened. Like a police report, delivered in flat tones, all words equal.
They were at the beach, Stella building her sand castle, Kathleen reading a paperback. She may have drifted asleep, but her daughter’s
