TWENTY-EIGHT

“AN eight-piece bucket, please,” Matt informed the dented speaker.

“Just the chicken?” the tinny voice asked. “Or the whole meal?”

I grabbed my ex-husband’s still-hard biceps. “I’m literally starving.”

“The meal.”

“Sides?”

I was about to recite a list when Matt held up his hand and shot me a familiar amused look—one I usually saw in the bedroom: Don’t worry, Clare. I know what you like.

The food came out hot and fast. Matt handed me the paper sack. I hurriedly opened it, ready to shove my face inside with all the polite refinement of a horse greeting its feed bag.

“Hold on,” Matt commanded as he returned the van to Queens Boulevard. “Don’t eat yet.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“Look, this isn’t just dinner, okay?” Matt said, taking a quick right. “You could make a mental breakthrough with this food.”

“A mental breakthrough? With Kentucky Fried Chicken?”

Matt nodded vigorously as he made another right, lapping us around the crowded residential block. “Be patient, Clare. I need to find a legal spot for us to park and eat.”

Easier said than done. Zero spaces were free here; both curbs were packed with cars and vans, all of their bumpers kissing.

“Can’t you just double-park? We won’t be long.”

“I don’t want to risk some drive-by flatfoot with a ticket quota getting suspicious.”

My stomach growled again, and I groaned. The tempting smell of freshly fried chicken was cruelly taunting my saliva glands. “I’m dying here. Can I at least eat a biscuit?!”

He grabbed the bag from my lap and dropped it into his. “Control yourself.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw my last hospital meal!”

A few minutes later, we were passing the KFC again. This time we crossed over the wide, busy boulevard and motored down a much quieter cross street. Seeing a shadowy shoulder, Matt pulled over.

“We’re nice and secluded here . . .” He killed the engine with satisfaction. “Perfect, huh?”

“Perfectly creepy.”

On one side of the road, I saw nothing but dingy brick warehouses, their garages shuttered for the night with pull-down doors of accordion metal. On the other side, a stone wall stretched as far as I could see with tangled brush below and tree limbs hanging above.

“What’s on the other side of that wall? A park?”

“Sort of.”

I tried to remember the last map of Queens I’d consulted out of boredom on a taxi ride to the airport. I recalled seeing a large green space adjacent to Queens Boulevard, but it wasn’t a park—

“That’s a cemetery!”

“It has a lawn. And trees.”

“There are graves in there!”

“You want me to find another spot?”

By now I was drooling.

“Forget it,” I said. “If I don’t eat soon, I’ll be giving up the ghost. Then instead of driving me to the South Fork, you can dig me a bed on the other side of that wall.”

“You know, I forgot how overly dramatic you used to get.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re acting like you did right after we divorced. Impatient, argumentative, accusatory. You’re much more mature now.”

“Are you trying to get slapped?”

“That’s your hanger talking.”

“My what?”

“Hunger plus anger equals—”

“I get it. But if you don’t hand over some sustenance pronto, I’m going to hang you.”