Page 116

Paul’s hand moved under the table, then stopped before touching mine.

He had learned quickly, or perhaps he’d always known how to stop at the edge of a closed door. I had spent years calling that distance. Tonight it looked more complicated.

“You okay?” my father asked quietly.

“Yes.”

He looked at me over the top of his glasses, which he had put on to read the wine label because Walter didn’t trust any bottle brought to him already opened. “That is not your most persuasive yes.”

“I’m working on it.”

He nodded, then turned slightly as Patricia leaned over from Paul’s other side.

“Sometimes evenings settle once everyone stops worrying over them,” she murmured to me, smiling at Aunt June across the table as she said it.

It sounded like advice. It wasn’t, it was a request, wrapped in silk, that I step neatly back into the evening she’d planned.

Before I could answer, Alan rose from the table. Conversations continued for another few seconds, forks moving, glasses lifting, women smiling across centerpieces. But attention shifted toward Alan the way it did toward men who were accustomed to standing and being granted the floor.

Paul’s hand went to his champagne glass.

Alan lifted his glass. “I hope everyone will forgive me for interrupting such a lovely dinner.”

My mother’s spine straightened.

Patricia’s smile didn’t move, but her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.

My father set down his fork as Alan continued, his voice warm enough for the room and cool enough for those of us who knew better.

“Patricia and I have been grateful for the friendship between our families for many years. Walter, Bitsy, your hospitality has always been...”

“Dad,” Paul said.

Alan paused, annoyed by the interruption but not yet worried. “Paul.”

He stood as every face in the room turned toward him. Mine included.

He buttoned his jacket, an automatic gesture, then seemed to realize he’d done it and let his hand fall. A piece of hair had dropped across his forehead again. He looked young. He also looked steady, and that was new, or perhaps old in a way I hadn’t recognized soon enough.

“There isn’t an announcement tonight,” he said.

The room was so quiet I could hear the ice settle in someone’s water glass.

Alan’s expression tightened. “This isn’t necessary.”

“It is.”

Patricia lowered her glass very carefully to the table. Beside her, Paul’s grandmother leaned forward, suddenly twenty years younger.

Paul looked around the room once.

“Lorrie hasn’t made a decision,” he said. “We won’t make it for her.”

My mother went perfectly still as my father looked at Paul for a long moment, and something like respect crossed his face before he hid it.

Alan’s jaw worked once. “Paul, sit down.”

“No.”