SCARLET ♠️
Clara refilled my mug and sat back down and folded her hands on the table and looked at me with the particular patience of a woman who had been waiting for this conversation longer than I had realized.
“I have nowhere to be,” she said again. “And you have been carrying something for two weeks that is getting heavier every day I can see it on your face. So.” She nodded at the phone, face down between us, Ray’s name no longer lit but somehow still present in the room like a word said out loud that hasn’t finished landing yet. “Start wherever you need to start.”
I picked up my mug. Put it down. Picked it up again.
“His name is Ray Lionel,” I said. “And before I tell you anything else about what is happening right now I need to tell you who he was first. Because it matters. The
