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Named me after India Wilkes.”
    â€œShouldn’t it be Scarlett or something like that?”
    â€œIndia was a secondary character.”
    â€œI guess I skipped that book,” he joked. He’d skipped a lot of books, hardly ever shown up for class. It was surprising he’d graduated from high school. He wouldn’t have, if his big brother had been willing to accept anything less. “Where does your mother live these days? She still in Oakland?”
    â€œShe died when I was eighteen.”
    She’d had to deal with two family deaths? “I’m sorry. So it’s just you and your father now?”
    â€œNo, my father died before she did, but I didn’t know him very well. They were divorced when I was three. He was an alcoholic, wasn’t part of my life.”
    He could relate to her situation there. His own father had turned to alcohol. “So neither of your parents knew Charlie?”
    â€œNo, we were only together the last six years.”
    â€œWhere did you meet?”
    He expected her to say college. The timing would’ve been about right. But she didn’t. “I was waiting tables at a restaurant near the hospital where he worked. He and some of the other doctors used to come in quite often.”
    â€œDoctors.”
    She nodded. “He was ten years older than me.”
    â€œAnd he was a doctor.” Rod repeated that because it wasn’t good news. It confirmed that she was, indeed, way out of his league.
    â€œA heart surgeon,” she said.
    Shit. Just what a guy wanted to hear when he’d never even attempted college.
    â€œIf he’d had another fifteen or twenty years, who knows what he might’ve accomplished,” she said softly, almost reverently. “I believe he would’ve made a real difference in the world.”
    Rod knew then that it didn’t matter if Charlie was six feet under. An auto body technician couldn’t compare with a renowned heart surgeon, even the memory of one.
    â€œWas it a car accident that killed him?” Rod hoped it wasn’t a heart attack. That would be too ironic.
    â€œPlease. Like I said, I’d rather not talk about his death.”
    He didn’t understand why she had to leave him wondering. She’d told him other things, like how long Charlie had been gone. Why couldn’t she say it was an accident or an illness or whatever?
    â€œI shouldn’t have asked again,” he said. But his curiosity couldn’t be entirely unexpected. Someone dying that early was unusual.
    They were silent for a moment. Then Rod spoke again. He didn’t want his question about her late husband to be the end of their conversation. “Can’t be easy to work on art with a child underfoot. Is that part of the reason your in-laws are keeping your daughter? To give you a chance to get started on your pottery?”
    â€œNot really. Having her around helps fill the hole Charlie left behind. They have a daughter, but her job took her to Japan two years ago. They don’t see her often.”
    â€œA family of high achievers, huh?”
    â€œYes. They can be a bit intimidating.”
    â€œYou didn’t feel you fit in?”
    She hesitated. “They were fine. Anyway, for the record, I’d never choose to be without Cassia.” She sent him a grim smile. “When she’s gone, I hardly know what to do with myself. I can’t work all the time.”
    She’d recently lost her husband, and she was new in town. He could see why she’d want her daughter to keep her company. But at least the kid had grandparents who cared about her. Rod hadn’t been lucky enough to get decent parents, let alone anything more. If not for Dylan, his oldest brother, who’d raised him, he would’ve been put into foster care when he was in middle school.
    Now that they were older and able to take care of themselves, life was easier. Rod was glad of that. He was also