B008KQO31S EBOK (35 page)

Jeffrey looked smug, as though aware that he fit into this place better than Nick did.

Nick smiled, determined to outgrace the jerk, and offered his hand. “Yes, I have.”

“We meet again.” Jeffrey said smoothly, then inclined his head to Philippa. “May I be the first to say that you look wonderful today, Philippa.”

She slipped her hand through Nick’s elbow and smiled, looking her playful self for the first time in a while. Maybe the heat was off now. “Actually, you can’t. Someone beat you to it.” She smiled up at Nick. “But thanks anyway.”

Jeffrey’s lips pinched and Zach gave a low whistle.

Then he shrugged. “Hey, no offense Nick, but we wanted a back-up plan. Throws off the seating if you can’t boy-girl it all the way around. And no one really believed that Philippa would bring you here.”

Nick swallowed a wry laugh. “Now, I can’t imagine why.”

The silence was deafening.

James cleared his throat and surprisingly provided some relief. “Funny but Zach doesn’t seem to have done his part to maintain that seating plan.”

“Weren’t you going to bring Sandy?” Leslie asked, seizing a neutral topic of conversation with apparent relief. “She’s so nice...”

Zach interrupted her curtly. “We broke up last night.” He didn’t look so chipper all of a sudden. Nick guessed that he hadn’t instigated the break-up of the relationship.

No one seemed to know what to say. They were stuck in the foyer, mired in a silence that could last all week, the birthday boy amusing himself elsewhere. This could prove to be a very long evening.

“I think,” Beverly finally trilled with false cheer, “that it’s time we all had a drink.”

I
t was hell.

I was so embarrassed by my father’s behavior and couldn’t imagine how I could explain it to Nick. I had expected my father to say something, but he’d said a lot.

And now he sat at the head of the table and said nothing at all. He was giving Nick the alpha-male death glare, but Nick, to his credit, was doing a splendid job of ignoring him.

Nick’s manners were exquisite. In fact, he showed them all up, but they didn’t even know it. I knew he was angry, I could feel him boiling away beside me, but the others never guessed. My mother was watching Nick like a hawk and I could feel her slowly thawing.

She is a sucker for a man who keeps up appearances. If anyone had been keeping score—and I suspect she was—Nick would have been skunking my father at that game.

Of course, she was getting pickled
tout de suite
as well.

Conversation was stilted at best. There was no help, there never is because my mother doesn’t want to have to persuade some paid employee to be complicit in her drinking. She doesn’t want some woman from town spreading such tasty gossip. It wouldn’t look good. So, we women served courses and cleared the table, taking turns.

My mother always started out cooking with good intentions. She was a good cook, but the sherry made her lose her edge. And she imbibed as she worked, so usually the meal degenerated.

Tonight was no exception. The salad was good, the asparagus soup was light and delicious. It’s my father’s favorite and he was starting to thaw slightly by the time we got up to get the main course. My mother was looking a bit unsteady, so Leslie and I insisted on serving it up.

I like doing kitchen duty with Leslie. She’s a no-nonsense kind of woman and she gives me no grief for being all thumbs. She does anything resembling cooking and I get plates and so forth. It works.

So, the main course was a roast of beef, another favorite of Father’s, to be served with mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetables. My mother always stuck a little menu list on the fridge, which was handy because we could just check each course even after she was too far gone to remember.

Everything seemed according to plan. The meat was a bit too well done on the top, but we’ve read that book and seen that movie, and we were pretty quick to hide the evidence. The platter looked great once Leslie had sliced up the meat and I popped it back into the oven while we got the vegetables. She thickened the gravy and I served up the carrots and peas, and then I realized that we had a problem.

There were no potatoes.

There wasn’t another pot, or a dish in the oven, or a casserole in the microwave. We looked high and low, but the best I could do was come up with a basket of unpeeled, unwashed raw spuds from the pantry.

Oops.

“They’ll take too long to cook,” Leslie insisted, casting an experienced eye over the other elements of the meal, which were rapidly cooling. “We’ll have to go without.”

We tried to brazen it out.

My father nodded with approval as we set the steaming dishes on the table, only frowning when Leslie and I took our seats again. “Where are the potatoes? Beverly, weren’t you serving this with potatoes?”

My mother took a sip of sherry and scanned the table, taking a moment to inventory what had been served. She looked at me, nonplussed. “Didn’t I cook them?”

I shook my head minutely.

She smiled and sat up straighter. “Then, Robert, the potatoes are in the pantry. The peeler is in the second drawer to the right of the sink and really, you could use any of the pots.” And with that, she drained her glass.

She set it down and tapped the base, and Matt was quick to top her up.

My father nearly inhaled his tie. The words broke from his lips individually. “You. Forgot. To. Cook. Potatoes?” He bounded to his feet. “How could you be so stupid?” Then glared as he cast his napkin on the table. “How could you be so
drunk
?”

She smiled at him, as cool as could be. “How could you be so unspeakably rude?”

His face went red. My father does not do well with public criticism and my mother usually plays to his rules.

But not today.

Something had made her feisty. My father came to exactly the same conclusion. His gaze flicked from my mother to Jeffrey—who was closely examining the pattern on his plate—to Nick and landed on me. He shook one heavy finger at me. “This is all your fault.”

Nick’s voice was low and dangerous. “There’s no reason for you to talk to your daughter this way.”

“You will not tell me how to talk to my family.”

“I will not sit here and listen to you insult her for no good reason.”

“Then you’re free to leave.”

“I like this boy,” my mother declared and saluted Nick with her glass. “It’s about time somebody told you when you were wrong, Robert. And you’re wrong a lot.” She drank to that, much to the astonishment of my brothers.

My father’s hands clenched and unclenched. He was going to blow and woe to anyone in his way.

Leslie and Marcia exchanged a glance, then ushered the children to their feet. “Come on, let’s get the cake.”

“But we haven’t had dinner yet.” James Jr. complained.

“Never mind, come on, come on.”

My mother seemed to be enjoying herself. She leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs and gestured with her glass. “Zach, what’s the difference between God and a lawyer?”

“Um, I don’t know, Mom.”

“God doesn’t think he’s a lawyer.” She smiled archly at my father and drained her glass once more. The decanter at Matt’s elbow was empty. “Jeffrey, be a dear and pass along that bottle, if you please.”

He turned to do as he was asked, but my father’s words stopped him. “Don’t touch it, Jeffrey. You’ll only encourage her.”

Jeffrey froze, the bottle in one hand, clearly uncertain which was the polite choice. Should he do the bidding of host or hostess?

‘Boss’ won. He put the bottle down.

The tension sizzled.

Zach braced his elbows on the table and smiled. “Hey, maybe this is a good time to share something with you all. What do you get when a law student fails the bar exam twice?”

“Zach Coxwell,” Matt said quietly.

“A loser,” James contributed at the same time.

“A need to actually study instead of wasting everyone’s time,” was my father’s terse answer.

“Nope, you’re all wrong. What you get is a photographer.”

If Zach wanted our attention, he certainly got it. We all looked at him in confusion. My mother frowned. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No, it’s supposed to be good news. You’re supposed to all congratulate me on finding my niche in the world.”

“You’re going to be a lawyer,” my father snapped. “We’ve all known that from the day you were born.”

“No, you see, if Philippa doesn’t have to do it, then neither do I. I don’t think it’s my calling. I’ve been taking this photography course and I’m thinking that...”

“Philippa,” my father interjected, “has a great deal to answer for today.” He took a considerable swig of his wine as he stared down the length of the table at my mother. “But then, it was only a matter of time before what was bred in the bone came out in flesh, wasn’t it, Beverly?”

My mother blinked several times in quick succession. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t think that I know what you did. You think you fooled me, but I’ve known all along. I’ve known all along and I’ve done right by you, despite your treachery, but it all had to come out in the end.”

“Perhaps you might share, Robert, since no one else knows what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I mean. Look around the table, Beverly. Isn’t it funny that I only have one child with red hair?”

My gut went cold. I was thinking of those letters tied with that ribbon and my mother in tears. A couple of dots were getting together to make a line.

“Or maybe I don’t have a child with red hair at all. Maybe I don’t have a daughter who’s a bad seed, who shows no inclination to be like me at all, who doesn’t look like anyone in my family. Do you think I’m stupid, Beverly?” His fist hit the table and the crystal stemware danced as he roared. “Maybe it’s time you explained just who fathered this child?”

He pointed a shaking finger at me and I know the blood was gone from my face. My mother watched him, a little smile playing over her lips. “I never did think you were stupid, Robert, but you’ve just proven me wrong.” She flicked a finger at Jeffrey. “Give me that, please.”

He looked away.

They all looked away, as though my mother was invisible again.

And she knew it.

Nick swore. He stepped across the room, took the bottle and peeled off the seal while he made his way to my mother’s side. He poured her a glass, then set the bottle down beside her before taking his seat once more.

“It figures that a Sullivan would encourage her,” my father sneered.

“It certainly wouldn’t be a Coxwell man who acknowledged my presence,” my mother retorted. She graciously thanked Nick and sipped as my father fumed.

“It’s time you told me the truth, Beverly.”

“I suppose it is. Though you should be careful what you ask for, Robert.”

“You’ve told
her
the truth and that’s why she defies me. You...” He geared up for a rant, but my mother sat up very straight, her very pose silencing him.

“Well, congratulations, Robert. I never told a soul, but you’ve managed to tell everyone something they didn’t even need to know.”

“You were faithless...”

“If we’re going to have the story, let’s have the truth, shall we?” My mother’s eyes were snapping. “It’s true, I did have an affair. I was young and foolish and unused to men of such passion and poetry. He intrigued me, though his manners were rough, he had no future, and he couldn’t have always looked as good as he did then.” She looked into the bottom of her glass and smiled. “He could, however, write marvelous love letters.”

“Spare us the details.”

“You asked for details.”

“If you think that I will sit here and listen to you reminisce about an old lover, in front of my sons, then...”

“Then you are wrong again. Your sons this and your sons that.” My mother rolled her eyes impatiently. “Honest to God, Robert, I’m no adultress. If anyone is not your child, it’s James.”

James blanched.

My father choked.

Nick covered his mouth with his hand and I’m not sure he wasn’t laughing.

“This happened
before
we were married, you old fool. I knew you were the right man for me, I just wanted a bit of romance. You were always so logical, so proper, so good. My parents adored you—do you know how galling that is for a young girl? I went too far once, on one night, but I’m not an idiot. That was enough to show me how foolish I was being.”

She paused to take a sip. “I married you because I loved you, Robert. In those days, I was naive enough to think that would be enough.”

She set the glass down hard, her eyes glittering with tears. The crystal stem snapped with the force of impact, and the goblet toppled down, spilling sherry on to the linen.

My father stared at her, shocked to silence. It was as though we had all been struck to stone.

There was a sound of childish giggles, then the door to the kitchen opened. The kids came in, Leslie carrying the cake which was adorned with too many candles, Marcia flicking out the overhead lights. Oblivious to what they had interrupted, they started to sing Happy Birthday to my father.

I thought things had to improve from here, but I was wrong again. The doorbell rang. Matt went to the door and came back, a familiar shadow behind him.

“It’s Detective O’Neill. He wants Philippa to go down to the police station with him.”

“What?” I made a kind of choking sound.

“What the hell is this about?” Nick demanded.

My father swore and put his head in his hands.

Chief O’Neill took off his hat, nodded apologetically to my mother for obviously interrupting a family event. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the assault on Lucia Sullivan.”

“You can do it here,” my mother protested.

“No, ma’am. We’d like to take a set of fingerprints.” He sighed and opened his notepad. “I’ve got a warrant, if anyone wants to see it. If you need a few minutes, I can wait.”

“Arrest her now,” my father said crisply. “Blood or not, she’s no longer welcome in this house.”

I got to my feet with all the pride I could muster, pulling my hand from Nick’s grip. “I’m going to need a lawyer. Maybe one of you would like to help.”