The Night's Legacy Read Free Page B

Lois knew Mom was still trying to come to grips with what Lois had done.  In the scientific community Mom was the smartest woman on the planet, but when it came to the real world she was as naïve as a child.  She could never have lived in a roach motel like this or slept under bridges or in alleys as Lois had; it just wouldn’t make sense for Mom to do that when she had a perfectly good home.
    Lois ’s entire life of the last seven years amounted to one canvas bag she slung over her shoulder.  She tucked her uniform from the diner under her arm with a note thanking Mr. Henry and Miguel for their kindness over the last six months.  Then she went down to the office to pay the bill.  Mom reached into her purse for her wallet.  “I’ll take care of this.”
    “I can pay it,” Lois insisted.  She reached into her pocket for a wad of bills.  Mom’s eyes widened as Lois counted off six twenties and placed them on the counter.  The manager woke from his alcoholic stupor long enough to snatch these and stuff them in his pocket.  Lois set the uniform down on the counter along with another forty dollars.  “Make sure Mr. Henry gets this, will you?”
    “Sure, kid,” the manager growled and then took the uniform.  There was a fifty-fifty chance he would actually do it, but Lois didn’t want to drag Mom around the whole town.  They still had a long flight ahead of them.
    It had surprised Lois outside the hospital to see an ordinary Ford sedan and not a limousine.  For environmental reasons Mom rode a motorcycle to work and had never been comfortable with driving a car.  When Lois was little Aunt Betty had done the driving.  Once she married Dr. Johnson, Lois and her mother took cabs or hired a car for the day.
    After she dumped her bag in the trunk, Lois offered to drive.  Mom Glared at her.  “Do you have a license?  A real one?”
    “No—”
    “Then I’ll drive.”
    They were out of Durndell when Mom asked, “Where did you get all of that money?”
    “Working.”  Lois rolled her eyes and added, “Not anything illegal, I swear.  Waitressing mostly.  A few odd jobs here and there.”  Most of those odd jobs had involved clerical work or computer programming, but she had liked working in an office even less than going to school.
    Mom sighed.  “I worried you might have become a—”
    Mom’s face turned red.  Lois finished the thought for her.  “A hooker?”
    “Yes.  Or something worse.”
    “Look, I don’t smoke, I don’t use drugs, and I’m not having sex for money, all right?”
    Mom turned her head to Glare at Lois.  “Don’t talk to me like that.  I’m your mother.  It’s my job to worry about you.”
    “I know—”
    “I don’t think you do.”  Mom turned back to watch the road.  She didn’t say anything else all the way to the airport in Lubbock.  That was another of Mom’s weapons.  She adhered to that philosophy of, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  Whereas someone else might rant or rave, she would simply go silent, her jaw setting as if it were made of concrete.  It had never taken long when she was little for Lois to crawl onto her mother’s lap and apologize.  Later she tried waiting Mom out, but that never worked either.  This time she folded her arms over her chest and watched the west Texas scenery go by in silence.
    * * *
    As expected, Dr. Johnson had loaned Mom his jet for the trip.  Dr. Johnson was the only Egyptologist in the world to have his own airliner.  He had enough family money to pay for the upkeep and he had told Lois the first time she took a ride in the jet that it was much easier to use his own plane than to fly commercial.  It certainly made it easier to get through customs with the artifacts he and his team recovered from the desert.
    She was disappointed to find no one on board except the stewardess, who took Lois’s bag to put into an overhead bin.  “Dr. Johnson didn’t come with