Free Fat Tuesday by Sandra Brown Page A

days, dental appointments, and the open house at school tonight. Reminder notes and class pictures of the two boys were stuck to the refrigerator with magnets shaped like ketchup bottles and mustard jars. A cookie jar in the shape of a teddy bear smiled at him from the countertop.
    Following his gaze to it, Nancy offered him some."They're store bought. I don't bake much anymore." "No thanks," he said."The coffee's fine."
    She returned to her mixing bowl where she was crumbling saltine crackers into ground beef. Chopped green peppers and onion were waiting to be added along with a can of tomato sauce."Meat loaf?" he asked.
    "How'd you know?"
    "My mom made it often enough."
    "Your mom?" She looked at him with puzzlement."You know, Burke, I think that's the first time I've ever heard you mention your family.
    In all the years I've known you."
    He shrugged."I worried about reprisals, you know, that sort of thing.
    So I purposefully don't talk much about them. Anyway, it's not much of a family anymore. My dad worked for the railroad. When I was in third grade, he got crushed between an engine and a freight car. So my mom was a working single parent before it came into vogue. She was a telephone company employee until she died of cancer a few years ago.
    "Now it's just me and my kid brother. He lives in Shreveport. Has a wife, a couple of kids." He smiled wryly."Mom must've known three dozen ways to stretch a pound of ground meat."
    "I can identify."
    "How are the boys?"
    "Fine."
    He sipped the coffee, which tasted worse than expected."Are they doing okay at school?"
    "The last report cards were good."
    "Besides grades."
    Knowing that he was referring to their psychological well-being, she hesitated."They're okay. Considering."
    "Well. That's good." He toyed with the salt and pepper shakers on the table, placing them side by side, separating them, pushing them back together."It's been warm lately."
    "I'd like to think that means the end of winter. But we still might get a freeze."
    "Yeah. As late as March."
    Lately, this lame attempt at conversation seemed the best they could do. They avoided talking about anything substantive or important.
    Which was strange since the roughest times were behind them.
    He'd been the one to bring her the news of Kev's death. Doug Pat had volunteered to carry out the unpleasant task, but Burke had insisted that the responsibility fell to him. He'd been there to support Nancy when she collapsed after hearing the news, and he'd remained a fixture at her side throughout the funeral procedure.
    In the ensuing weeks and months, he had helped her sort through insurance papers, file for the inadequate pension she received from the N.O.P.D, set up her own credit and bank accounts, and make other necessary budgetary adjustments.
    Responding to a phone call from her, he'd come over the day she cleared out Kev's closet. She offered Burke some of his better clothes, and he'd accepted them. Then he'd dropped them into a Goodwill receptacle on his way home. He couldn't have worn them.
    In the fall, he'd checked the furnace and changed the filters for her.
    At Christmas, he'd set up the tree and helped her decorate it. Kev had been dead almost a year, but Burke still felt compelled to come by every couple of weeks to lend his widow whatever assistance she might need.
    Trouble was, it was becoming harder to find things to talk about.
    With the passage of time, their conversations had become more strained, not less so. Burke avoided talking about anything relating to the police department and the personnel Nancy knew. Since his work was the most vital component of his life, he found himself searching for something besides the weather and the boys' health to fill the increasing stretches of silence.
    She always received him graciously, but she had changed, subtly but undeniably. She was more reserved now than she'd been when Kev was alive. They'd shared some rollicking laughs. She could tease and put you down as well