“A last-minute trip?” Sayer said as she popped open a cold beer.
Nana leaned against the counter. “Yes, I’ve got a new job.”
“You’ve got a job?” Sayer split the hot mole onto two plates and slid one to Nana.
Nana shrugged noncommittally and shuffled back to the table with her plate. She took a bite and closed her eyes. “God, Tino can cook!” She savored the flavor for a long moment before continuing, “Being retired is boring as hell. I suppose I forgot to mention I was looking for a job.”
“Only you could forget to mention something like that, Nana.”
The two women ate in companionable silence for a bit. Sayer wanted to press for more information, but knew Nana would share when she was ready.
“I noticed you’ve got the files about Jake out. You still reading through all that every night?” Nana pointed to the dog-eared stack of files piled on the edge of the table.
Jake had been working on a highly classified undercover operation when he was killed almost four years ago, but Sayer knew that something must’ve gone wrong on the op because the FBI was hiding something about his death. How could he have drowned on duty? And why were they being so cagey about the details? Every night before bed, Sayer went through the highly redacted files, trying to see something she’d missed. She just wanted to figure out what really happened.
“You know I do.” Sayer was not in the mood to be lectured about Jake. No one could quite understand why she couldn’t let go of her need to investigate his death. “I just wish I could make sense of what happened to him.”
“You miss him,” Nana said gently.
“Every day.”
“So, I know you hate the whole tough love thing…”
“Nana, not right now please. I just started a new case that I need to focus on.”
“You do realize that your mourning isn’t just about Jake, right?”
“Nana…” Sayer said with warning in her voice.
Nana just waved her hand. “Oh whatever. You know I’m too old to wait to talk about important shit like this.”
“Nana,” Sayer repeated, but she couldn’t prevent the half smile that cracked her lips. Every time Nana cursed, it still shocked her a little bit. Nana had spent her entire life as a very proper lady of old Washington during the era when women were meant to bake cookies and support their husbands. As wife to a powerful senator, she had spent her days putting on fancy dinner parties and working as a librarian, and probably, if Sayer knew her Nana, brokering backroom deals negotiated by the wives of politicians. But now that her husband had passed away, her only daughter gone as well, and her grandchildren grown with lives of their own, Nana was done being prim.
“Oh whatever,” Nana said again, mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Plus, for all I know, I’ll die before I get home. I’m an old lady after all.”
“Nana!”
“You just going to repeat my name all night?” Nana smiled. “Now just listen to me. Your obsessive rereading of the same file every night isn’t really about Jake.”
“Of course it is. I’m trying to figure out what happened to him. And where are you going?”
“Don’t change the subject. Of course you’re trying to figure out what happened to Jake. But do you really think at this point that you’re going to find something new in that stack of papers you’ve looked at a few thousand times? It’s become some kind of ritual, warding off the need to actually move on. He’s been dead for years now. How many dates have you been on since then?”
“How many dates have you been on since Granddad died?” Sayer snapped.
“I’ve been on, let me see”—Nana counted on her fingers—“six, seven, eight. I went on eight dates last year.”
“What?” Sayer blinked. “I’ve never heard about these dates.”
“I miss Charles, but I’m not dead yet.” She winked at Sayer. “And stop trying to change the subject. You’re using the mystery about Jake’s death as a shield to protect you from having to be vulnerable again. You’ve never acknowledged that you’re also mourning the life you thought you and Jake would have together. You had a plan, two FBI agents, fighting crime, building careers,” Nana said gently. “You not only lost Jake, you also lost that entire imagined future. And here you are drinking a beer in your barren kitchen with your old grandmother lecturing you while wearing fuzzy socks.”
Sayer laughed. “At this point I think you might just want to leave your own pair here.”
“Now”—Nana gestured around the kitchen—“you’ve got this family cobbled together with an adopted teenager you saved from a serial killer, your grumpy downstairs neighbor, a three-legged dog, and your old grandma harping at you at three in the morning.”
“A family that I’m perfectly happy with. Why would I want someone to complicate things? Can we talk about something else? Where is this mysterious place you’re going?”
Nana finished her last bite of mole and primly placed her fork down. “I’m heading to Montana. You know I’ve been working with that community health group downtown? Well, the CDC has asked us to come assist with a measles outbreak they’ve got in some small town up there.”
“You’re going into the middle of a measles outbreak in Montana?”
Nana’s face fell into the no-nonsense look Sayer recognized from her youth. The look that said, do not even try to fuck with me about this. “It’s a short-term job, just helping the doctors and local health folks get a clinic set up to do community outreach.”
“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”
“Says the serial killer hunter…”
“But I mean … that’s me…” Sayer stumbled over her words. “You’re in your seventies … you’re a librarian…”
“A librarian who knows how to organize and implement large, complex systems while keeping track of everything. My skills can help people. I’m tired of doing lunch with the ladies in Georgetown.”
“You’re tired of luncheons so you’re going to work in the middle of a medical epidemic,” Sayer said flatly.
“Yes. The person they hired backed out last minute for personal reasons; they had my resume. Plus, I had the measles when I was little so it’s perfectly safe. And it should only take a few days.” Nana’s face softened. “Listen, I know you want me to age quietly, but I’ve only got so many good years left and I want to live them doing something that matters to me.”
She stressed the word “me” and Sayer understood. Nana had spent her life making sure everyone else was taken care of. She was ready to live her own life a little.
“Did you know that I wanted to be a doctor when I was young?” Nana asked.
“I think you might’ve said something to me once.” Sayer frowned.
“Well, when I went to college, there were still jokes about going to get your Mrs. degree, you know, find a good marriageable man. When I told my advisor that I wanted to do premed, he literally laughed at me with that pitying oh-you-silly-little-girl tone. And so I did library science like a good girl. Which gave me a career I loved, but it wasn’t my heart’s desire.”