Chapter 2Saturday morning, Helga Lund, Nick’s mother, was at our front door. I could see her striking face through the door’s glass pane. I was still in my gym shorts, half asleep, standing barefoot in the hall, holding a glass of chocolate milk.
But my mother wouldn’t answer the door. “Hurry, get it,” she said, shutting her old flannel robe tighter, before shuffling back to her bedroom in the back of the apartment. I heard her lock click and knew she’d stay in there all day. On Saturdays, my mother would usually go over to the presbytery and help with things there. Whatever those things were. But today, she had a migraine.
I set my glass down on the hall table and then cracked the door open a sliver, embarrassed to meet Helga in my U2 T-shirt and gym shorts. She was a classy woman with
