‘Do you think he would have been proud of me?’

‘Are you kidding? Of the two of us, he’d have been the one sitting here in tears.’ She took one of her son’s hands and squeezed it gently. ‘He loved you so much, Eth.’

Ethan nodded. ‘I know he did.’

‘I wish he was here to see the person you’ve become.’

‘Thanks, Mom.’

They went back to their food for a while and, when they were done, asked for some fresh coffee and just sat there in the booth talking about the news, about books and movies, about stuff that had nothing to do with Ethan leaving home or Jo’s work. But then, just as Jo asked for the cheque, her son glanced at her across the table, that same echo of Ira in his face, and said, ‘So what are you going to do about your job?’

Jo looked out the window: between the diner and the edge of the blacktop, a dusty haze had kicked up, whorled and churned by the passing traffic.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said finally.

‘You’ve fallen out of love with it.’

‘Have I?’

‘That’s what you said.’

‘I don’t remember that.’

‘Admittedly, you’d had a couple of glasses of wine at the time.’

Jo laughed and he smiled back at her, but she was only pretending. That was what she’d said, and it had been fuelled by a bottle of wine: Ethan had been out somewhere with a bunch of friends and, when he’d got home, she was watching reruns of some old show she’d long forgotten and on the table in front of her had been her notebook.

Old cases from her time at the Sheriff’s Department.

And, in the middle of it, the case.

‘Mom?’

She looked at Ethan. ‘I don’t know if I’ve fallen out of love with it exactly – it’s more that, over the years, it’s just …’ She stopped again, trying to articulate what she felt, conscious of dousing the excitement of Ethan’s day. ‘I guess what I’m saying is, I struck lucky when I took that job at the LAPD because it came at a time when I had more leeway in dictating terms – they wanted more women, they were trying to change, and I wanted to spend more time with you; all of it worked out for the best.’

Ethan frowned. ‘So you’ve fallen out of love with it because …?’

The waitress brought the cheque to the table.

‘Mom?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She waved him away. ‘It’s boring, Eth.’

‘It’s not. I want to hear.’

‘Today isn’t about me being a cop.’

‘Tell me, Mom.’