Chương 4
Julian glanced between his parents.
The anger went out of his face, replaced by something more cautious.
“Mom?”
She pressed both lips together and looked toward the ballroom doors.
Through the glass, guests were dancing now.
The band had moved into something upbeat.
A little girl in a pale green dress spun in circles near the cake until an older woman caught her before she collided with a waiter.
Life kept going six feet away.
Marlene looked back at me.
“Your mother tried to contact you before.”
My fingers tightened around the letter.
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Once?”
“No.”
“Five?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“When?”
“Over the years.”
Conrad’s voice became flat.
“Marlene, go inside.”
She gave him a tired smile.
“I’m fifty-six years old, Conrad.”
“You are also standing in the middle of something that has nothing to do with you.”
“It has plenty to do with me.”
Damian stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Nobody did.
Marlene’s eyes remained on mine.
“The first time I know about was when Julian was a baby.”
My nephew looked at her.
“What?”
“She had found an address for you in Norfolk.”
My mind moved backward.
Norfolk.
I had been twenty-four.
A lieutenant junior grade with a one-bedroom apartment whose kitchen light buzzed whenever the refrigerator compressor turned on.
I had lived on takeout noodles, bad coffee, and the belief that exhaustion was a personality.
Nothing had ever arrived from home.
“What happened to it?”
Marlene looked at Conrad.
He said nothing.
I asked again.
“What happened to the letter?”
Damian answered this time.
“Dad intercepted it.”
Julian stared at him.
“You knew too?”
“I was there.”
The words came reluctantly.
“Mom asked me to mail it.”
“And?”
“I gave it to Dad.”
“Why?”
Damian rubbed the back of his neck.
It was an old nervous gesture.
As a teenager he used to do it after breaking something valuable.
“He said she was having a weak moment.”
I could hear my own breathing.
That irritated me too.
Weakness had always been Conrad’s word for anything that threatened his authority.
Grief was weakness.
Doubt was weakness.
Changing your mind was weakness.
Love, if it inconvenienced him, was apparently weakness too.
“What did the letter say?”
“I never read it.”
“Did she know you gave it to him?”
Damian looked away.
That hurt more than I expected.
“No.”
I unfolded the pages again.
My mother’s first paragraph waited exactly where I had left it.
I skipped lower, reading fast now.
Your father told me you returned the Norfolk letter unopened.
My eyes stopped.
I read the sentence again.
Then a third time.
The terrace seemed to tilt.
I held the page out toward Conrad.
“You told her I returned it.”
His jaw tightened.
“She needed closure.”
“You lied to her.”
“She was tormenting herself.”
“You lied to me too.”
“I never told you anything.”
“That was the lie.”
Julian whispered, “Grandpa.”
Conrad turned on him.
“Enough.”
“No, I don’t think it is.”
“You have no standing in this.”
“I’m her family.”
“So am I.”
The silence after that was almost obscene.
Conrad heard it.
Damian heard it.
Marlene looked down.
I folded the page carefully because otherwise I might have crushed it.
“My family?”
I asked.
Conrad’s expression flickered.
“I am your father.”
“You fired me from the position.”
“That was anger.”
“You kept it up for twenty-one years.”
“You left.”
“You threw my belongings into the street.”
“You made your choice.”
“So did you.”
His breathing changed.
“I was trying to stop you from ruining your life.”
I looked through the glass at the ballroom.
Crystal chandeliers.
White roses.
People with money and names and invitations.
The entire architecture of Conrad Voss’s idea of success.
“You thought I ruined it?”
He followed my gaze.
For the first time, embarrassment crossed his face.
Not shame.
Not yet.
“You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
“You were nineteen.”
“Yes.”
“You had no understanding of what you were giving up.”
“Bennett Vale?”
“A future.”
“With a man who cheated on me before we were engaged.”
Conrad’s eyes sharpened.
“Bennett was twenty-two.”
“That is not a medical condition.”
“He was immature.”
“He told me I could tolerate it because women in our position always did.”
Damian looked at me.
“He said that?”
I laughed softly.
“You were in the house when I told Dad.”
“I thought you were exaggerating.”
“Of course you did.”
He flinched.
There was no pleasure in it.
For years I had imagined hurting him back.
The reality felt like dropping something fragile by accident.
Conrad rubbed his temple.
“Bennett apologized.”
“To you.”
“He was prepared to apologize to you.”
“I didn’t require an appointment.”
“He came from a family we had known for decades.”
“There it is.”
“Elise.”
“No, finish it.”
My voice had stayed level, which frightened me more than shouting would have.
“Tell Julian why the Vale family mattered more than whether your daughter wanted to marry their son.”
Conrad looked at the ballroom again.
He had always preferred an audience he could control.
“There were business interests involved.”
Julian stared at him.
“My marriage was part of a deal?”
“Don’t be childish.”
“I’m asking.”
“You are reducing a complicated situation to something vulgar.”
Marlene laughed suddenly.
Everyone turned toward her.
She covered her mouth.
“Sorry.”
She shook her head.
“No, actually, I’m not.”
Damian closed his eyes.
“Marlene, please.”
She looked at him.
“Your father tried to trade your sister into a merger and you’re worried I’m being impolite?”
“It wasn’t a merger.”
That came from Conrad.
Marlene stared at him.
“Fantastic correction.”
Despite myself, a laugh escaped me.
It was brief and ugly and completely inappropriate.
Julian started laughing too.
Then Marlene.
Damian looked horrified.
Conrad looked betrayed by civilization.
For ten strange seconds, four of us stood on the terrace laughing at something that was not funny.
Then it stopped.
The ache underneath it returned heavier.
May you like
I looked down at my mother’s letter.
There was more.
