She saw him, saw Nick, and wiped her cheeks. His first instinct was to go to her, to hug her, to comfort her. But she’d already told him what he could do with his instincts. Nothing like hearing your daughter tell you to screw off to warm the cockles of your heart.
“Coffee?” he asked Nick.
Nick shook his head, pacing back and forth while Graham fed coins into the coffee machine.
“Soda?” he asked.
Nick shook his head again, rolling his shoulders.
“Candy bar?”
Nick stopped, leveling him with a hard look. “I’m good.”
He doubted that. And while the boy had every right to be upset, something told Graham it went deeper. Before his wife had died, before Matt had deserted his family, before his and Matt’s practice had disintegrated, he’d known Nick well. Holidays, birthdays, summer cookouts, vacations—the Murphys and Buchanans had been close. And then life had taken a rapid nosedive, his world splintering into pieces so small there was nothing recognizable left. He glanced at Diana again, her too-skinny frame turned away from them as she held on to this latest grief with every fiber of her being.
She believed she was a ‘magnet for bad-luck’. From her grandparents to her pets to her mother, Diana’s life did appear to be one long strand of miserable pearls. And now, tonight.
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