“How did it happen?”

“Car accident.”

The flat way Philip said it made Tonya stop working. Philip, however, continued cleaning as he spoke. “I’m pretty sure my father had been drinking, though the cops never said. He was a prominent guy, and back then, the media covered up that sort of stuff for wealthy people.”

“Drinking and driving, you mean?”

Philip snorted. “Drinking and driving. Smacking your wife around. Child abuse. Wealthy people have always had a kind of carte blanche.” He tossed the cloth into a laundry bin. “Anyway, they reported that he might have had an allergic reaction or something.”

“Was he allergic to anything?”

Philip took another paper towel from the rack and began to dry the areas that he’d previously wiped down. “Peanuts. I am, too, actually.” He ran the towel over the walk-in’s handles. “My father was always pretty careful about asking what was in his food, though. I can’t see him actually ordering anything with peanuts.”

Philip balled up the towel in his hand, looking away as he squeezed it in his fist. “Anyway, he crashed the car with my mom in it.”

“Geez.”

Tonya realized she was simply standing there, listening rather than working. Yet she couldn’t do anything else. It was one thing for Philip to clean a counter while sharing the news of his parents’ deaths, distracting himself from the emotional weight of his story. It was another for her to do so. She didn’t want to appear dismissive.

“Is it possible to crash a car because of a food allergy?”

“If you go into anaphylaxis, then sure. The body can become starved of oxygen. You can have a heart attack. Food allergies can be pretty serious.” Philip threw the second used towel in the laundry bin. “I wouldn’t want to stand beside the fryer when it’s bubbling with peanut oil.”

Tonya glanced at the dormant contraption. It sat in a corner, its metal baskets suspended over empty wells. “You use peanut oil even though you’re allergic?” Tonya asked.

Philip shrugged. “It has the highest smoke point, which means it’s the best for frying chicken. And it’s not like I can get really sick from breathing it alone.” He placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the room. “I think we can call it for tonight. Why don’t you get the rest of your stuff? I’ll drive us home.”

Tonya thanked him distractedly. She grabbed her coat, still thinking of his sad story with his father. “Are you as allergic as your dad?”

Philip slipped an arm into a wool jacket. “I can’t know for certain. But if I swallowed a bunch of it, I suspect it would definitely kill me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

IMANI

He’d driven her home.