“Enough!” Gloria’s voice rang out. “Not everyone has to stay with a man who beats them. Not everyone decides that scraps are good enough for them. I’m not going to let you make me feel guilty for not wanting to be beaten for the rest of my life.”

“You’re a whore! Nothing but a whore,” Linda shouted. “And when my son comes home, he’s going to make sure you pay for what you did.”

Gloria felt her skin crawl. It was nearly word for word from one of Glenn’s letters.

She heard the whispers of the crowd. Benevolence loved to witness a person’s business. Now, they were getting a front row seat to the ugliness that had been her life for ten long years.

“You sound like your son,” Gloria said sadly. “I feel sorry for you.”

A police cruiser pulled up to the curb, and Ty climbed out. “There a problem here?” he asked.

“I think we’re done here,” Gloria told Ty.

She turned her back on Linda and walked away, shoulders hunched.

“I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” Linda announced to Ty.

“No one’s sayin’ you did, Mrs. Diller,” Ty said, in full-on authority mode.

Gloria slipped through the crowd, avoiding eye contact. One pitying look, and she’d break like fine china on concrete.

“Gloria,” Aldo called after her. But she kept walking.

He caught her on the steps to her apartment. “Say something,” he said, reaching for her hand.

She let him have it because she wanted some sense of kindness to warm the cold within. She knew what she needed., She only had to ask. And trust.

“Do you want to come upstairs and drink tea and watch Pride and Prejudice with me? Because I need a friend.”

He grabbed her hands. “Is it the Colin Firth version or the Keira Knightly one?”

She felt the ghost of a smile play on her lips. “I have both.”

42

A kaleidoscope of color and pattern welcomed Aldo when he crossed the threshold into Gloria’s apartment. As many times as he’d walked by in the late hours of the night, he’d never imagined her home to look like this.

The couch, the color of ripe eggplant, was nearly buried under a mound of throw pillows in every shade of green imaginable. The dining room table, a scarred and rickety find, was accessorized with a tablescape of fat pillar candles. She’d grouped bold art prints and framed family photos on the walls, which were painted a rich gray-blue.

The throw rug was orange and white that picked up the tangerines in the two upholstered chairs pushed under the bow window. They should have been hideous with their floral print and tufted backs, but somehow, as part of the whole, they were charming.

The environment, the sheer, colorful happiness of it took the edge off the anger he was riding from the confrontation in the park.