My mother's hand stops over the table.
For the first instant, I think she's searching her memory for the name.
Then I realize she actually found it too fast.
The color starts leaving her face. Her fingers pull slowly away from the glass, as if she forgot what she meant to do with it, and her eyes lose focus. They don't go to me, or to Rhayne. They stay fixed somewhere past the room.
"Mom?"
She doesn't answer.
My mother stands up.
The movement is slow, without the hurry of someone startled. It looks worse than that. Like her body knows exactly where to go while her head has gone somewhere else.
She crosses the small distance to the couch and sits down. Maybe looking for something softer to hold whatever just turned hard in her memory.
Her hands come together in her lap.
Her eyes stay empty.
Rhayne looks at me, and I look back at her.
'Whatever that name just dug up, it isn't good.'
