“I promise we will tell you as soon as we hear something,” the cop said.

Izzy turned to Ever.

“You were right,” he said. He got up and took her hand with its twenty-seven bones, it’s phalanges and metacarpal bones and carpal bones and many muscles, tendons, ligaments, sheaths, arteries, and nerve endings that provided the sense of touch. If you were alive. Cyrus was dead, but Izzy and Ever were still alive.

They walked out of the station together. He didn’t let go of her hand.

“I have a recording session for a few hours. Are you okay?”

“I’m going to see Cyrus’s parents,” Izzy said.

◆◆◆

Del wasn’t there. When Izzy bent down to hug Cyrus’s mother, she almost gagged on the smell of chemical sunscreen with a faint undertone of spoiled milk. Jody stared, catatonic. She wore a housedress, sandals, and socks—her legs blue with swollen, erupting veins. Izzy knelt at her feet.

“I’m sorry.” Izzy put her hand on the woman’s rawboned arm. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I love my boys,” Jody said.

“I know.”

“I didn’t do everything right all the time, but I love them.”

Izzy stared straight ahead, blinking back tears.

“Joe said he’ll kill whoever did this,” Jody told her. “I’m afraid he’ll get out and get sent right back in.”

“No one knows what happened,” Izzy said. “But I’m going to try to find out.”

“Cops came by again. After they told me. Asking if I knew anything.” Jody’s eyes snagged on Izzy like silk on dry skin. “Why would anyone hurt a good boy like that? He was so good. Everyone loved him.”

“I know.” Izzy dug the nails of one hand into the meat of her other palm.

Cyrus’s mother frowned, skin like sand dunes wrinkled with shadows. “What happened to you?”

“I fell,” Izzy said.

Jody grabbed Izzy’s hand, searched her face.

Izzy said, “What can I do for you? I want to help.”

Silence.

“Can I give you a massage? Like I do at the inn. It might help some.” She kept repeating that word: help, help, help—like an idiot.

No response.

“I could just rub your shoulders or something.”

Jody nodded, and Izzy stood behind her. But Cyrus’s mother flinched at the initial touch, so Izzy took it slow. What if Jody could feel the pain spilling through all those nerve endings in Izzy’s fingertips? Still, she would try. Finally, she was able to knead her fingers into Jody’s rigid muscles, and maybe Izzy had been right, maybe her pain, mixed with Jody’s, was what tipped the scales. Because Jody was crying.

“He was my precious angel,” Jody said. “He was everyone’s angel. Especially yours.”

Jackie’s Strength

Jackie’s Strength