When Legless first saw Mandy, he dropped his ladle into the soup.
Beryl had been on her phone while he was “heating things up,” his notebook as forgotten as the friggin’ time.
Normally she’d be on him in a flash, telling him to keep his memoirs to a thought—the last thing they needed was his writing “giving the game away.”
Not this evening. She didn’t even notice his spaghetti, smell his warm bread. She, with her face in her phone, charged outside to talk, only reappearing hours later—his soup cold with a skin on top, his bread as hard as a calloused heel, and his spaghetti as limp as his appendage.
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While Legless stood in the camper van kitchen—ladle poised—Beryl stood next to his shed waiting for Hilda and Mandy to arrive.
For a year she had been on Earth, thinking about her hom
