Page 10 of Ice Around the Edges

“No, you don’t understand. Dixon became furious. He got up and yelled at his father right there and tells him to stop pretending that he cares at all.” I reached out for her hand, which she immediately took. “I had never seen that particular look on my husband’s face before, and it took me a minute until I realized what it was.”

I waited. I didn’t really care, but the story was interesting.

“He was baffled. Mr. Bain was at a complete loss, and so he asked Dixon what in the world he was talking about.”

Funny that Dixon’s father would try to pretend that he had no idea, but no one ever liked being confronted by the elephant in the room. It made sense that he would plead ignorance.

“Well, out of the blue my father remarks that he’s confused. He had thought that Miles ended it with the girl because of how unsuitable she was. He thought that Mr. Bain’s opinion of the girl had been unfavorable.”

I shrugged. “That’s okay. I know Dixon’s grandfather, your father, is from old money. I’m sure to him I wasn’t good enough to date his grandson.”

“You didn’t hear me,” she said. “Listen again: Miles; and the girl was unsuitable.”

My head snapped back to her from where I was looking out the window.

She nodded.

“Miles?” Dixon’s brother? His brother Miles? “Girl?”

“Yes, to both.” She sighed, patting my hand. “I asked my father where he ever got the idea that the girl was unsuitable, and he turned and looked at my husband and said that they had been talking about it ages ago when they were in Chicago on business.”

I waited as she took a deep breath.

“Dixon is fuming at this point and says his grandfather has it all mixed up and that the conversation had nothing to do with Miles or a girl but had everything to do with you, Evan, his boyfriend. There was no girl, there was never a girl, there was only you. He told both his father and his grandfather that he had overheard the conversation in question and that was why he broke up with you, because he knew his father would never accept you into the family.”

“Wow.” I shook my head. “Well, it’s certainly nice to finally hear the––”

“No.” She quieted me, her fingers curling around mine, squeezing gently. “Listen now. So Mr. Bain is just sitting there staring at his son, and finally tells him that he owes his grandfather an apology. My father doesn’t have anything wrong, Dixon does.”

“What? I’m so lost I––”

She smiled wide. “I know. I was too. We all were. Myself, Dixon, my son Miles, my daughter Alyssa, all of us sitting there staring at Mr. Bain like he’d grown another head.”

“What happened?” I asked her, riveted.

“Well, finally Dixon says that he knows his father and grandfather didn’t approve of you, and do you know what my father said?”

“No.”

“He said that he was unaware that Dixon dated women.”

I glanced over at Dixon. He was looking at me with the most pained expression on his face, fingers laced on top of his head.

“No one heard him when he said girl, either.”

“Oh shit,” I breathed. “They were never talking about me.”

“Right,” she said as she nodded, “they were never talking about you.”

“Oh my God.”

“Oh my God is right. Mr. Bain then tells us that the night he spoke to my father about bad choices in partners, he was speaking of Danielle Vicksburg, Miles’s girlfriend from college. He had been saying that even though she was from an excellent family, he had found the girl completely unsuitable, not at all like Evan.” She finished, enunciating my name for maximum effect.

I had to start breathing before I passed out.

“Oh yes.” Her smile was huge. “He goes on to say that he and my father had both found your zeal to help the common man admirable, if deluded.” She chuckled. “And that you were a pistol and the way you had bantered with him had been delightful. You didn’t back down from your moral stance, and he found that refreshing. He told Dixon that he had always been confused by the fact that, as enamored of you as he said he was, the romance was not pursued after college. He found that strange but thought perhaps the two of you had simply drifted apart. He was certainly not about to interfere in the love lives of his children outside of premarital agreements.”

“Oh.” I stared at her, stunned.