A Fistful of Rain by Greg Rucka Page A

schedule.”
    “I’m getting the first-aid kit.”
    “It’s not a deal, Joan.”
    She retrieved the metal box with its scratched white enamel paint and brought it back to the table, flipping it open and telling me to keep my hand still, then began unwrapping the old bandage. When my palm was revealed she used some cotton and antiseptic to clean the dried blood away. Her fingers were long and very strong, pianist’s fingers, with neatly trimmed nails. The second knuckle on almost every finger was slightly swollen, going arthritic. Steven used to massage her hands after she’d been playing for a while.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    She murmured that it was all right while she tore the wrapping on a fresh square of gauze. “Looks nasty.”
    “It’s just a cut.”
    “You should have someone look at it, honey. You don’t want it to turn into something that threatens your playing.”
    “I’ll do it tomorrow,” I lied.
    She used some strips of cloth tape to hold the gauze down. “You’re as bad as Steven was.”
    I moved my look from her hands tending mine to her face, saw the bitterness. Steven had suffered from the sore throat for months before he’d been willing to see anyone about it, and even then, only because he’d started bringing up blood in the morning. By the time the cancer had been found, the only possible treatments for it had been devastating and, ultimately, futile ones. No one ever said so, at least not to me, but the feeling was that he’d just waited too long.
    “I’ll go to a doctor tomorrow,” I said. “I promise.”
    Joan closed the kit and said, “You’re a grown woman, you’ll do what you like. You’re home until June?”
    I grinned. “That’s the plan.”
    She didn’t buy it. “Who’s filling in for you?”
    “Oliver Clay. You don’t know him, out of L.A. He’s good. He’s not me, of course, but he’s good.”
    The joke didn’t even get a smirk. “Did you and Vanessa have another fight?”
    I shook my head. “I just wanted to come home.”
    She started to frown, then stopped it before it could take hold, deciding to let this matter drop, too, which wasn’t really like her. My coffee was getting cold, and it felt like it was cold in the house, too, as if the furnace wasn’t working.
    “I heard ‘Queen of Swords,’ ” Joan said, after a moment. “You’re doing things with the instrument that Steven would have been thrilled to hear. It’s very accomplished playing.”
    “He wouldn’t have thought it was too glib? I kept thinking he’d have told me I was being glib.”
    “No, he would have been very proud of you. Steven was always very proud of you.”
    Pressure came thundering hard behind my eyes, and my head began to ache, like I had a migraine. I wanted to say that I hadn’t come back for the funeral because I’d been angry and scared. I wanted to say that if I could do it again I would do it right, I would be there for her. That I would know how to say good-bye to the man who, as far as I was concerned, was my father, more than the man who’d given me my genes.
    But I hadn’t, I’d chickened out and hidden in the Beverly Hilton behind all the bottles I could find.
    Joan was looking at the clock on the stove, and getting to her feet, saying, “I’ve got to get to bed, sweetie. I’ve got to teach tomorrow, and I have to get up early.”
    I started to nod, then blurted, “Can I stay? Just in the guest room or maybe up in my old room, please?”
    She stopped, looking surprised. “Of course you can, hon, if that’s what you want.”
    I nodded again, more vigorously, feeling shamefully young.
    Joan came around to my side of the table, dropping down on her haunches and putting her hands on my arms. It created strange nostalgia, as if the moment now could have been a moment ten years ago, with me in pubescent misery and Joan offering all the maternal guidance she knew how to give. She put a hand on my cheek.
    “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
    I tried to open my