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We sit down to eat. But before one forkful reaches anyone’s mouth, my mother stands and taps her wine glass to ask for attention.
“I just want to say something,” she says. “Before we eat.”
Oh, boy. Here we go.
“It’s been a hard winter for this family. A very hard one. And I know there are people at this table who thought we’d never all sit down together again.” She looks around, gathering nods. “But we’re here. That’s what family does. Family moves forward.”
It’s a riff on the same speech she served up last time. As she goes on about the damage that my slideshow did, it occurs to me that her language is more polished every time.
She’s rehearsed it. She’s said it so many times to so many people in this parish that it’s got grooves worn in it, and I’m sitting here for the second time as the audience for a bit she’s been touring since New Year’s.
What’s bothering me is that, in ten weeks, she has never once asked me a single question.
She never asked what was in the videos, or how long it went on, or whether it’s true that my signature was forged on four million dollars. Not to me, and as far as I can tell not to Vivian, either.
It makes me wonder. Could she have…?
No. There’s no way.
She’s my mother, and even if Vivian is her superstar, her golden child, I’m still her daughter.
She would never…
Would she…?
Before the question can even fully take shape in my head, Mom wraps up her speech—
—and Vivian stands to take her place.
Instantly, I get a bad feeling. There’s something in her face I don’t like, don’t trust. A smug smile. A twinkle in her eye.
“I’d like to make a toast,” she announces. She raises her glass high. “To Dee and her new man. And their very successful partnership.”
She puts an emphasis on that last word that only adds to my unease.
Partnership. What could she mean by that? She couldn’t possibly know the full extent of our relationship.
Hell, I don’t even know the full extent of our relationship, and I’m the one in it.
But her smug smile is only getting smugger.
Her twinkling eye is only shining brighter.
Something bad is coming.
I can feel it.
“Kane,” Vivian continues brightly, “how’s the waterfront project coming?”
Nobody says anything.
“Sorry—I only ask because it’s so interesting. All those blocks down by the piers.” She sets her glass down and picks up a folder off the sideboard behind her. “Do you own the whole street now, or is it still just most of it?”
“Viv, what are you—”
“Relax, Dee. It’s not always about you.”
She opens the folder and starts sliding pages out, one, two, three, passing them to Uncle Johnny to hand down.
