~1.4~

The first two benches had been pulled out long ago, leaving only the big four-seater in the back and the two bucket seats up front. The floor was buried under blankets, with a bear skin rug on top. It wasn’t the same rug as before, proving that things could change even inside the van… but Mama was just as he remembered.

She had to be older now. Nick supposed that as a kid, everybody over the age of thirty must have looked “old” to him, and so the middle-aged Mama really looked the way she had in his mind and memories. Her face was still strong and proud… her hair kept back by a wide ivory band… her skin the color of Turkish coffee, now crinkled a bit around her eyes

She’d been having herself a lie-down on the bench when the young man opened the double doors and ushered Nick inside, shutting them behind him.

“Little Nicky Brown,” she said. “As I live and breathe.”

“Hello, Judith,” Nick said. He gave her a shy smile. Not his lawyer’s smile, though he’d meant to give it… it was the only smile he’d worn for so long that he hadn’t realized he had any other to give. Mama’s eyes had dug deep and found another one, long buried.

“Judith,” she said, rolling the name around in her mouth as if to see how it tasted. “Huh. Judith. Can’t say I hear that name every day.”

“I found out your real name a few years back,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again… I just was curious. Call it nostalgia. Judith Nussbaum. You know, you don’t really look like a Nussbaum.”

“And you don’t much look like a Brown!” she returned. “You’re a lawyer now… I’ve seen your name here and there. You made good. Some said you forgot about us.”

“I didn’t,” Nick said.

“I know,” Mama said. “I knew you’d be back, too… just as soon as you wanted something.”