That was the afternoon I met her son.
He came in carrying a paper sack from the deli downstairs, a broad-shouldered man in his forties with a canvas work jacket and a carpenter’s pencil still tucked behind one ear. He stopped in the doorway when he saw me.
“Wes, honey, this is Gordon Ashby,” June said. “We went to high school together. Gordie, this is my son, Wesley.”
“Wes,” he said, and shook my hand.
He had a firm grip. He also had a way of looking at me that I couldn’t quite place, long and searching, the way you’d study a house you were thinking of buying. His eyes went from my face to my hands and back again.
“Mom’s talked about you,” he said.
“Has she? Only the good parts, I hope.”
“Mostly,” Wes said, and the corner of his mouth lifted, and something about that half-smile tugged at me, though I couldn’t have told you why.
