18. Conrad #2
“Work was easier,” I admitted. “Predictable. If I worked harder, things improved. Parenting after…” I swallowed slightly. “After Jade died, it felt impossible half the time.”
Winnie smiled gently. “You love them very much.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice cracking. “I do.”
“And they know that more now.”
Now. The honesty of it stung a little.
CJ pointed at a fountain. “I believe that fish is plotting against me.”
I laughed under my breath.
Winnie was watching them with an impossible tenderness that made my heart ache in a way I didn’t entirely understand anymore. No. That wasn’t true. I understood it perfectly. That was the problem.
The gardens buzzed softly around us, spring on full display.
Jade should’ve been here. That thought still existed. But somehow, another thought existed beside it: I was glad Winnie was here.
I checked my watch just to ground myself. “Oh,” I said. “We should head out to our next stop.”
Immediately, three children materialized directly in my face.
“Where are we going?” CJ demanded.
“Yes,” Bianca added suspiciously. “Reveal the itinerary.”
“It’s another surprise,” I said.
All three groaned loudly. Amusement danced across Winnie’s face as the kids started to interrogate her. She betrayed nothing.
CJ narrowed his eyes. “You both have conspiracy energy right now.”
Bianca pointed accusingly. “You’re doing coordinated smiling.”
“Oh my god,” Billie whispered. “Are we joining a cult?”
Winnie adjusted her sunglasses calmly. “Get in the car, Billie.”
Billie shrugged. “That’s not a no.”
Downtown looked a lot different on Sundays. It was much less frantic with far less traffic. I liked it.
The city softened around the edges when lawyers, bankers, and overworked professionals briefly stopped pretending they enjoyed email.
Parking spots appeared. Crosswalks became survivable.
People spilled out of restaurants, and sunlight bounced off old brick buildings that had somehow survived every modernization attempt thrown at them.
CJ pressed his face against the car window as I parked along the street. “Father,” he said solemnly. “Have you brought us to the financial district as our surprise?”
“No.”
Billie was already halfway unbuckled before I stopped her with a look. “Can I ask a question?”
“You’re going to regardless,” I said.
“True. Is this educational?”
“Sort of.”
Bianca narrowed her eyes at me from the back seat. “You’re being overly sentimental.”
“That’s a rude thing to say to someone on Mother’s Day.”
Winnie sat beside me in the passenger seat, her hands resting on her knees. There was something softer about her today. Less guarded. Maybe because she’d agreed to come not as their nanny but as herself. Maybe because grief made strange companions out of people.
I shut off the engine and turned toward the backseat. “All right,” I said. “Today is a memory tour.”
That earned me a round of confused blinking.
CJ frowned. “That sounds fake.”
“It’s not fake.”
“Are we ghost hunting?” Billie squealed, wiggling in her seat.
“No.”
“Maybe just a little?”
“Still no.”
“What’s a memory tour?” Bianca asked.
I looked out the windshield toward downtown. “It’s…” I hesitated, trying to explain something I hadn’t fully figured out myself. “We’re going places your mom loved. Places that mattered to her. The botanical garden was the first stop.”
The car went quiet. Then Billie asked, very seriously, “Will there be snacks?”
Winnie snorted softly.
“Yes,” I said. “There will absolutely be food on this tour.”
That restored morale.
Our first stop sat three blocks away on the corner of an old brick street lined with flower baskets and antique lamps. Marino’s Italian Café. The sign hadn’t changed in over twenty years. Neither had the owner.
The bell above the restaurant door chimed as we stepped inside, the scent of warm bread and garlic wrapping around us.
Billie moaned theatrically. “I can smell butter.”
An older hostess looked up from behind the stand, her whole face changing when she saw me. “Oh my goodness. Conrad Lawrence.”
I smiled despite myself. “Hi, Teresa.”
“And these must be the babies.” She pressed both hands dramatically to her chest. “Last time I saw them, they were all sticky and screaming.”
“We’re still sticky,” Billie assured her.
Teresa laughed, then her eyes moved toward Winnie beside me. Something curious flickered there. I suddenly became aware of how domestic we looked standing together with the children around us.
Teresa seated us near the windows in Jade’s favorite booth without me even asking. The second we slid in, CJ pointed at the dessert case near the counter. “Mom used to bribe me with cannolis.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t bribery. She rewarded good behavior.”
I found myself studying Winnie instead of the menu as she smoothed the napkin out on her lap.
“She always corrected grammar here,” Bianca said suddenly.
I chuckled at the memory. “Oh yes, she absolutely did.”
Teresa overheard while passing by and barked out a laugh.
“She once sent back a specials board because they spelled fettuccine wrong,” I said.
Bianca looked deeply pleased. “That’s a reasonable reaction to a misspelled word.”
CJ leaned forward eagerly. “One time, she told Dad he couldn’t flirt properly because his brain was too corporate.”
Winnie sent me a sly look. “Oh?”
I groaned. “Please don’t encourage this.”
“She said he sounded like he was presenting a tax seminar when he flirted with her,” CJ said.
Winnie threw her head back and laughed.
God. That laugh. I’d become addicted to making it happen.
Billie frowned suddenly. “What was Momma’s laugh like?”
We all quieted. And embarrassingly, painfully, I realized I didn’t know how to answer right away.
It wasn’t because I’d forgotten. I’d never forget the sound of Jade’s laugh.
There were so many versions of it—when she heard something hilarious, when she was nervous and didn’t know how to answer a question, or when she gave me that sexy, playful smile once the kids were in bed.
I suddenly had flashbacks of Jade laughing at me, laughing at the kids, laughing while wine-drunk on the kitchen floor after a disastrous attempt at a home renovation, laughing until she cried during terrible horror movies.
My throat tightened unexpectedly.
“Based on the photos I’ve seen hanging in the upstairs hallway, your mom laughed with her whole face,” Winnie said. “And from the stories all of you tell, she sounds like someone who never laughed politely. It sounds like she fully meant it… laughed with her whole body.”
Bianca’s eyes lit up in an instant. “Yes. Sometimes she snorted.”
Of course, that had Billie making snorting noises like a piglet.
CJ nodded. “And she always laughed before finishing her own jokes because she thought she was hilarious.”
“She was hilarious,” I argued.
“She laughed loudest at Dad,” Bianca added.
That one caught me off guard. I blinked. “Really? You think so?”
All three children stared at me like I was stupid.
“You once fell into a decorative pond,” CJ reminded me.
“She laughed for twenty minutes straight,” Bianca said.
And suddenly the conversation moved again. Not away from Jade. Through her. We shared stories, embarrassing memories, and even argued about the details.
CJ insisted Jade once smuggled gummy bears into a movie theater inside her purse like a criminal mastermind. Bianca argued that it had been licorice. Billie wanted to know if their mom ever committed “medium crimes.”
I watched them remembering together and realized the grief wasn’t suffocating us anymore.
After lunch, we wandered downtown, trees flowering overhead. Billie skipped in front of us, trying to balance on every curb she encountered.
Our next stop was at the end of the block. The courthouse with white columns, broad marble stairs, and historic architecture no doubt designed to intimidate people.
Bianca stopped at the base immediately. “Mom worked here?”
“For a while,” I said. “She was a public defender.”
Winnie smiled. “It sounds like your mother cared a lot about people.”
We climbed the courthouse steps together.
I could practically see Jade there if I let myself.
Coffee in hand. Hair pinned up messily because she’d redone it in the car.
Heels she absolutely hated wearing. Expression that said she was already arguing with someone internally as she prepared for a case.
“She used to bring snacks for the interns,” I told the kids as we walked through the courtyard. “Like, actual homemade care packages.”
“Mom baked?” Billie asked skeptically.
“No,” I said immediately. “Absolutely not. She had someone else bake the treats.”
Winnie coughed to hide a laugh.
“Your mother once burned soup.”
“How?” Bianca asked.
“We still don’t know.”
CJ grinned. “Maybe she was experimenting.”
“She was a fire risk in kitchens,” I said.
Winnie looked deeply offended on behalf of kitchens everywhere, and I smiled despite myself.
“She also got reprimanded once for arguing with a judge,” I continued.
Billie gasped. “Did she win?”
“She technically lost the argument.”
“But emotionally?” CJ asked.
“Emotionally, she buried him.”
The kids giggled.
I pointed toward one of the side hallways visible through the courthouse windows. “That’s where she first flirted with me.”
Bianca looked horrified. “In a courthouse?”
“It was very unprofessional.”
“What did she say?” CJ demanded.
I rubbed the back of my neck.
Winnie looked entirely too interested in hearing what was about to come out of my mouth.
“She told me my tie made me look like an amateur.”
Billie burst into laughter. “That’s so mean.”
“It was accurate,” I admitted. “I wasn’t the best at purchasing professional-looking ties, and I was even worse at tying them correctly.”
Winnie smiled down at the pavement. “You liked her immediately,” she said.
I looked around the courthouse slowly. “Yeah,” I said honestly. “I did.”