Free Bad Love by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

Chondra looked up. Her mouth hung slightly open and water droplets bubbled her forehead, like oversized sweat.
    I went over to her. “Swim a lot?”
    She gave a very small nod and splashed one arm, turning away and facing the avocado tree. Young fruit hung from the branches, veiled by a cloud of whiteflies. Some of it was blackened with disease.
    Tiffani waved at me. Then she began to chant in a loud voice:
     
“I went to the Chinese restaurant,
to get a loaf of bread bread bread,
a man was there with a big mustache,
and this is what he said said said.
El eye el eye chicholo beauty, pom-pom cutie . . .”
     
    Evelyn came back holding a couple of mugs. Bonnie marched behind her carrying a small plate of sugar wafers. The look on her face said she’d been created for better things.
    I walked back to the lawn chairs.
    Bonnie said, “Here you go,” handed me the plate, and sashayed off.
    Evelyn gave me a mug. “Black or cream?”
    “Black.”
    We sat and sipped. I balanced the cookie plate on my lap.
    “Have one,” she said, “or are you one of those health-food types?”
    I took a wafer and chewed on it. Lemon-flavored and slightly stale.
    “I dunno,” she said, “maybe
I
shoulda been a health fooder, too. I always gave my kids sugar and stuff, whatever they wanted — maybe I shouldn’ta. Got a boy went AWOL over in Germany two years ago, don’t even
know
where he is, the baby don’t know
zero
about what she wants to do with her life, and Ruthie . . .”
    She shook her head and looked over at Tiffani. “Watch your head on that
branch
, you!”
    “Bonnie’s the baby?” I said.
    Nod. “She got all the brains and the looks. Just like her daddy — he coulda been a movie star. Only time I ever went gaga for the looks, and boy, what a mistake
that
was.”
    She gave a full smile. “He cleaned me out thirteen months after we were married. Left me with the baby in diapers and went down to Louisiana to work the deep-sea rigs. Got killed soon after in a fall that they
said
was an accident. Never took out the right insurance for himself, so I got nothing.”
    She smiled wider. “He had a temper on him. All my men do. Roddy’s got a fuse on him, too, though it takes a while to get it lit. He’s a Mexican, but he’s the best of the lot.”
    She patted the T-shirt pocket that held the cigarette pack. “Sugar and bad tempers and cancer sticks. I really go for all the good things in life, huh?”
    Her eyes watered again. She lit up.
    “All the good things,” she said. “All the blessed good things.”
    She kept the cigarette in her mouth, busied her hands by squeezing them together, letting go, repeating the motion. The lanyard lay on the grass, neglected.
    “There’s no room for your guilt,” I said.
    She yanked the cigarette out of her mouth and stared at me. “
What’d
you say?”
    “There’s no room for your guilt. All the guilt belongs to Donald Dell. One hundred percent of it.”
    She started to say something, but stopped.
    I said, “No one else should carry that burden, Evelyn. Not Ruthanne for going with him that night, and certainly not you for the way you raised her. Junk food had nothing to do with what happened. Neither did anything but Donald Dell’s impulses. It’s
his
cross to bear now.”
    Her eyes were on me, but wavering.
    I said, “He’s a bad guy, he does bad things, no one knows why. And now you’re having to be a mom, all over again, when you weren’t planning on it. And you’re going to do it without complaining too much and you’re going to do your best. No one’s going to pay you or give you any credit, so at least give
yourself
some.”
    “You talk sweet,” she said. “Telling me what I want to hear.” Wary, but not angry. “Sounds like you got a temper on you, too.”
    “I talk straight. For my own sake — you’re right about that. All of us do what we think’s best for us. And I do like to make money — I went to school a long time to learn what I do.