Lacey wore her long, caramel-colored hair tied back in a ponytail. Although he knew she was in her late 40s, Brody thought she carried herself like a woman at least ten years younger. The hairstyle was a change from the usual when it simply draped over her shoulders. Brody chuckled to himself while he watched her reach up to brush the hair back that wasn’t there. She muttered, “I can feel you watching me, Mr. Sexton, and yes, I know it’s all in my mind.”

Brody laughed. “It happens to everyone. You change one thing, and the rest of your brain has to play catch up. Besides, I can’t concentrate, and I can’t get anything done. Maybe I should just go out back and see if Seb needs any help stacking bags of mulch.”

Lacey spun her desk chair a quarter turn to face Brody’s desk. “Something’s up, isn’t it? I mean, I understand it might still be that big grief monster, but you haven’t added to the stack of paper on my desk all week long, and by Wednesday afternoon, I’m usually grumbling.”

“You are?” asked Brody.

“Oops. That’s another of those things I wasn’t supposed to share.”

Brody waved a hand and said, “No, you get a free pass for today. You’re right. I’m too wrapped up in myself. I guess part of it might be my mom.”

“Is there anything I can help with?”

Brody stood up and walked to the door of the office. He closed it tight and returned to his chair. Leaning forward, he asked, “Is it okay if I share something personal? I don’t have that many people to talk to, and I’ve seen how you talk some of your co-workers back from the ledge here.”

Lacey reached up for the invisible hair again and said, “Well, they aren’t that bad off, but I guess I’m helpful sometimes.”

“This conversation is off the record as far as work is concerned. Does that make sense?”

Lacey glanced at her computer screen and said, “We’ve only got an hour left in the work day if you want to just save it for later. We can go have a drink downtown if you want.”

Brody shifted in his chair and asked, “Do you think I’ll get anything productive done in that hour? Is there anything urgent for you?”

Shaking her head, Lacey said, “No. I’ve been trying to stay caught up because I figured something big was coming my way from you. I was ready for a huge order, or new software that I needed to learn. I can call it a day. Just don’t tell the boss.”

Brody snickered, “I’ll keep him in the dark.” He leaned back in his chair and asked, “You have a big family, right?”

“Oh, I’ve got a crazy big family.” Lacey leaned forward with her hands on her knees. “I’m one of ten children. My mom came from a group of eight, and my dad is one of twelve. That means anywhere you walk downtown; you’re likely to trip over one of my cousins. We joke that we make up half of the congregation at St. Anthony’s.”

“So relatives occasionally die.”

Lacey laughed. “One of my dad’s favorite comments is, ‘Don’t expect to plan a vacation because you won’t have any time left after you’ve gone to all the family weddings and funerals.’ And he’s got a point. We’ve spread out on both sides of the river as far east as Chicago and as far west as Wyoming. When somebody gets married or dies, everybody goes, and that often means at least one day off work. They are like family reunions.”

“Well, I’m curious. Have you ever had a close relative die, and then they left behind something you didn’t know about?”

“Of course. Who doesn’t do that?” asked Lacey. “I bet I’ve got some things in my closets that would make a few of the cousins blush. Was your mom not as innocent as you thought, Mr. Sexton? You’ve got to watch out for those librarians.”

Brody shook his head. “No, it’s nothing like that. She knew something big about another family member, and she didn’t tell me. In fact, she hid it from me. I don’t understand why. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“There is privacy,” said Lacey. “If my sister Ellie knows about those things I’ve hidden away, I hope she doesn’t tell all my brothers about it.”

Brody sighed. “I’m just taking you off on tangents. I guess I’d better tell you the specifics of what I’m talking about.”

Before she could reply, the phone rang. Brody listened to the one side of the conversation. Lacey said, “Oh, Seb, honey, I’m sorry. Yes, she called just after lunch and said she was going to stop in today instead of tomorrow, but she would be running it tight. She didn’t know if she would make it before five, but she was going to try.”

Lacey was silent as she listened to the response. Then she said, “I’m really sorry. It just slipped my mind. Do you need some extra help? I could send Mr. Sexton out.” After one more round of silence, Lacey said, “I will owe you a drink downtown. I agree. Thank you so much. You take good care of the customers. I’ll remind Mr. Sexton of that.”

As she hung up the phone, Brody said, “I think I already knew that he takes good care of the customers. Was that Mrs. Neely who called?”

“Yes, it was, and it slipped my mind after she called. In fact, she’s one of those cousins I was talking about. She’s my mom’s first cousin on her dad’s side. She’s scatterbrained. The first thing I thought when she said she would come today was that there was about a thirty percent chance of it happening. I guess I was proven wrong.”

“And Seb wasn’t too happy,” said Brody.

“No, he’s feeling blindsided, but you know Seb, he’s a sweetheart. He won’t be mad for long.”

Brody returned to the previous topic and asked, “Is there any chance you’ve got a cousin named Clyde Miller?”

Lacey leaned her head back and reflected for a moment. “No, I don’t know of any Millers in my family tree. They are your folk, aren’t they, Mr. Sexton? Your mother was a Miller?”

“She was, and I had a great-uncle named Clyde. After my mom died, I found photos of him kissing another man. It wasn’t just a friendly peck either. The men in the pictures were a couple.”

Lacey clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s sweet. You aren’t the only one in the family. If you were, I think that’s rare. Two of my cousins are gay. They are the youngest brothers in a family of seven.”

“And everybody knows?” asked Brody.

Lacey nodded. “Oh, of course. Billy was a freshman in college when he came out, and Steve, the youngest, was a junior in high school. He came out the day after his older brother. I could have guessed they were gay. They’re both so handsome.”

“Well, my mom told me I was the only one.”

Lacey furrowed her brow. “The only what?”

“She said I was the only gay person she knew about in the family. I found the photos of Great-Uncle Clyde in a box with other family snapshots. She always said they were the leftovers that didn’t make it into the albums. I went through the albums many times with my mom when I was growing up. Great-Uncle isn’t in the albums. I never leafed through the box of loose pictures. I trusted her that they weren’t worth my time.”

“Maybe it’s something she forgot?”

“He was close enough that I remember going to his funeral.”

“And no one said he was gay?” asked Lacey.

“Not that I remember.”

“How young were you? It isn’t something you discuss with little kids out of the blue.”

Brody said, “I asked her when I was a teenager if I was the only gay person in the family. It was important to me. I didn’t want to feel alone. If there were more like me, I wouldn’t have felt so much like an oddball.”

“And she said no?”

“She said no. Seb remembered him.”

Lacey nodded. “I’m not surprised. Seb knows everyone. He really should work for the historical society, but then we wouldn’t have him. He has so much information about people tucked away in his head. When I ask him questions, I can almost see him leafing through the folders in his head until he finds the right person. What did he have to say?”

Brody sighed. “Not much. He just said that he remembered hearing about my great-uncle going for weekends in the Twin Cities a lot.”

“He was looking for people like him?” asked Lacey.

“That would be my guess.”

“Why don’t you ask other relatives?”

Brody said, “I’m a little nervous about that. I mean, I wonder if my mom kept it a secret for some reason. I like to think she wouldn’t keep something like that from me without good reason. If she just hid it from me, that’s hard. It makes me wonder what else she hid? When you figure out that your ideas about one of the parts of the family were wrong, then you start to wonder if it’s all going to unravel like a sweater made of yarn when you tug on a loose end.”

Lacey reached out and tapped Brody’s knee. “I’m not going to say this as your secretary. I’m saying this as somebody who cares about you. Your mother was a good person. I know that, and most of Coldbrook Bend knew that. I’m sure she had her reasons, and she wouldn’t have done it to hurt you, Mr. Sexton. You can be sure of that.”