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“I don’t think mine does, but maybe I’m just not asking the right questions.”

“Is this too much information for someone you pitied into giving a private tour to be sharing with their tour guide?”

Melinda laughed and said, “I didn’t pity you. I just love showing off where I’m from. If anything, you gave me something to do on my lunch break. Jill, my colleague, has a tour right now, so I probably would’ve been eating alone at the office or something.”

“You didn’t even eat lunch,” Kyle realized, stopping in her tracks. “Can you get something quick here?” She looked around the Square for a restaurant.

“I’m okay,” Melinda said, laughing. “But thank you. I have the food tour up next.”

“Oh, okay.”

Kyle didn’t know what else to say to keep theconversation going, so she just started walking again, and Melinda joined her.

“So, any other tours coming up for you?” Melinda asked. “If not, I can recommend some.”

“Jolie is really the tour planner.”

“Well, you can tell her, then,” Melinda said. “We could do my version of the food tour. There are some amazing places outside of the Quarter that I’d love to show you.”

“Oh, you meant another tour with you?” Kyle asked, surprised.

“If you want,” Melinda replied.

Kyle nodded and said, “That would be great.”

???

“This was Mom’s room?” Jolie asked later, entering the room of a teenager.

“I think it still kind ofisMom’s room. It looks like it hasn’t been touched. It’s clean, but everything looks as though it hasn’t been used in about thirty years.” Kyle stood back and watched Jolie walk around the room. “Oh, and I found this book or journal thing in Grandma’s room.”

“A journal?” Jolie replied, turning around. “Mom’s?”

“I haven’t read it all the way yet. It doesn’t look like it, though. Grandma’s, I think.”

“Do you think Mom had a journal? That could tell us a lot,” she replied.

“I didn’t go through this room. I thought you should be here for that.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Hey, are you mad at me because I’m not as into this as you are?”

“No,” she replied, sitting on the end of the small twin bed. “I think it’s different.”

“Why?” Jolie ran a fingertip along the makeup table.

“Because I’m the reason she left. At least, that’s what she’s always told me: it’s my fault she ran from here. You came along later.”

“I wasn’t exactly planned, either,” Jolie pointed out.

“But you’re not the reason she had to flee this house. I am.”

Jolie sat down next to her and said, “Ky, Mom is a bitch for putting that on you. Mom and Dad had sex as teenagers and likely didn’t protect themselves, so she got pregnant. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad they did because I have a great older sister, buttheymade those decisions.Youdidn’t. I don’t know what happened here or why, but you weren’t even born yet, so none of it is your fault.”

“I feel like it’s still something I need to know.”

“I get it, but I hate that she’s blamed you for everything when none of her drama is on you.”

“Me too,” she replied, clearing her throat. “Oh, I found something in the journal thing. She had it tucked in the front cover.”