Michael came home for dinner, and though the head count was three, not five, enough of her family had gathered together to make Dana feel whole and alive. She supposed that was part of her recent dis-ease, that her role as the cog in the wheel of her family was not as vital as it once was, which certainly sucked, to borrow a word from her boys.
She plunked a bowl of rice pilaf on the table.
“Wine?” Michael asked, but she shook her head.
Sam held out his glass while Michael poured, and Sam said, “Maybe she didn’t know.”
“Maybe who didn’t know what?” Michael asked.
“Maybe the new Mrs. DeLano didn’t know that her husband was broke.”
“He was broke?” Michael said as he sat at Dana’s left, “his seat” at the table. It didn’t matter how many of them were or weren’t home, they always sat at the places they’d sat most of their lives, as if changing chairs would give them bad karma.
“We don’t know if that’s true,” Dana said. “It’s what Kitty was told during the divorce.”
“Then maybe no one shot him after all,” Michael said. “Maybe Vincent DeLano killed himself.”
“No,” Dana said. “The trajectory of the bullet would have been different if it were self-inflicted.” The boys looked at her blankly. “The police told me that,” she added.
“Well, if it’s true he’d been sleeping around,” Sam continued, “it could have been somebody’s husband.”
“Absolutely,” Dana agreed. “Except your father. It couldn’t have been your father, because I was not involved with Vincent DeLano.”
“Thank God for that,” Michael said, raising his glass in his left hand and crossing himself with his right.
Dana suppressed a small grin.
“I think we should see Mrs. Meacham,” Sam said, lifting the platter of salmon and helping himself to a good-size fillet. “She knows everything and everyone in this town.”
“The Mrs. Meacham?” Michael asked. “Don’t you need an invitation for that? Like having an audience with the queen? Or getting blessed by the pope?”
“Michael,” Dana said, “that’s enough.”
“Well, she’s pompous, Mom. I never understood why you and Dad hung around with them. The pompous Meachams. It’s not as if his fund is even doing that well.”
“He sold it,” she said.
“Well, I know that.” And of course he did, because Michael had been at Pearce, Daniels three years now and was doing quite well for himself, with a bonus this year of six figures.
“Let’s go tomorrow,” Sam said.
Dana smiled. “Tomorrow is Sunday.” Sunday was family day in New Falls, when most folks stayed close to home, reaping and sowing quality time with their own, unless something more interesting came up. Caroline and Jack would no doubt be with Chloe and Lee, perhaps planning the grand and glorious wedding, scheduled for next year, wedged between Caroline’s other high-profile commitments. A visit from Dana and Sam would not be considered more interesting.
“See?” Michael remarked, “I knew you’d need an invitation.”
“Well,” Sam said, “we’ll go Monday then.”
“Monday I’m going with Kitty to meet her attorney.” She did not tell him the retainer had been paid by Caroline.
“I need to go with you,” Sam said.” Well, I’d like to anyway. You might need a male’s perspective.”
“No,” Dana said firmly. “It will be too difficult for Kitty. She will not need an audience.”
“But Mom…”
“But nothing,” she said, hating to daunt his spirits, but knowing this time she was right. “Of course,” she added, “there’s no reason you can’t go to Caroline’s without me.”
“To the Meachams? Alone?”
“You’ve known them all your life, Samuel. They don’t bite, no matter what your brother says. Besides, you could practice your interviewing techniques on Caroline.”
“Yeah,” Michael added. “Like, ‘Gee, Mrs. Meacham, is your daughter really as uptight as you are?’ And ‘Gee, Mrs. Meacham, do you think Vincent DeLano was boffing half of New Falls?’”
Dana shook her head, resigned to the grim fact that she had three raucous boys, not prim little girls.
Sam threw his napkin at his older brother and Michael threw it back at him, then Sam flung a roll and Michael ducked and it grazed the Lalique orchid bowl that stood on the sideboard. They all held their breaths and waited for the crystal tremor to abate without breakage, then they shuddered and laughed and Dana pretended to be upset, but the truth was, all was now right in her slightly dysfunctional world.
Bridget and Randall sat at the dining room table that had been crafted of Zimbabwean teak and expertly carved in Vietnam. It was part of Randall’s effort to rise up and be global, to display “Christian forgiveness” that his brother had been killed in the jungle, Tet, 1968, while he’d been protected, a sophomore at Avon Old Farms. Unlike Randall, his father and mother had not leaned toward absolution, but had both died too young of broken hearts that masqueraded as cirrhosis and colon cancer respectively, and had remained angry with Lyndon B. Johnson right up until the end.
“The police changed Vincent’s time of death,” Bridget said, slicing the pork tenderloin that she’d cooked herself because Randall said she was the best.
“What?”
Her eyes moved from the pork to her husband. “Vincent was shot earlier than they’d thought. So maybe Kitty didn’t do it after all.”
When Randall was surprised his eyes seemed to narrow and his head seemed to shrink and his toupee looked too big for his skull. He reached for the plate that Bridget passed to him and said, “That’s ridiculous. Who else would want to kill Vincent?”
For a bright, global man, Randall could be awfully naïve. She handed him a bowl of turnip au gratin. “I cannot imagine,” she said. It would be best not to tell him about Lauren and Vincent because when it came to matters of the emotional kind, Randall preferred make-believe to the real world.
They chewed, they ate.
“Dottie made my reservations for Marseilles today,” he said, because, after all, the issue of France was there at the table whether Bridget liked it or not.
Dottie was the woman at Randall’s Wall Street office in charge of his business appointments and travel arrangements. She worked five days a week and half a day Saturday and should have retired several years ago. But Dottie had no family and few friends because she’d been wed to the firm.
Bridget nodded, helped herself to more Cabernet.
“I’ll leave at seven-thirty tomorrow night, get to Paris by nine, Marseilles by noon.” His fork clinked on the china.
“Have you packed yet?” she asked. He was one of the few New Falls husbands who never expected Bridget to pack for him. He always took care of his personal needs, like his shaving kit and his socks and, of course, his passport. She swallowed her worry that her scheme wouldn’t work.
“I won’t need much,” he said. “I’ll only stay one night.”
He would not stay a whole week as Bridget would have. Provence, after all, had been her home, not his. She would have spent the first part of Aimée’s holiday right there, ushering her daughter to visit old friends, Madam Buteux from the market, Mademoiselle du Paul whose mother had been best friends with Bridget’s, and Monsieur Luc LaBrecque, who sold horses now. She tried not to say his name too often, but, like a lover, Bridget was sometimes compelled to repeat it, to taste its magic on her tongue.
Luc.
She wondered if Lauren had been that way with Vincent.
“Do I have fresh shirts?” Randall asked.
“Oui,” she replied quietly, “the cleaners delivered them today.” Thankfully they had separate closets, so Randall wouldn’t know she’d already packed her own suitcase. She wondered when he’d notice that his passport was missing and how she’d stay composed until then.
“Aimée will be surprised,” Randall said, “to see me, not you.” Then his eyes moved from Bridget toward the entry hall. “On the other hand,” he said, his head shrinking again, a grin quickly widening his mouth, “it appears our young lady has beat us to the proverbial punch.”
With a perplexed scowl, Bridget’s gaze followed her husband’s, then alighted on their daughter, or on someone who looked a lot like their daughter, who was now in the dining room instead of Provence.
Aimée?
Everything in Bridget decelerated: her sense of comprehension, the flick of her eyelashes, the beat of her heart. Her jaw went literally, figuratively, anatomically slack.
Aimée?
Randall stood up, went to the girl, and gave her a big hug. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, “you came home on your own.”
Was it true? Was it she? Was she here and not there?
But no! That was not Bridget’s plan!
“Maman’s horse friend needed to come to New York.”
“Monsieur LaBrecque?” Randall asked before Bridget had a chance to process what Aimée had said, before she could absorb the fact that Luc’s name had been spoken by Randall, not her.
“Oui. He has a business trip the same time as my holiday,” Aimée said. “He offered to save Maman a trip. Escort me back and forth, you know?”
“Hey. Great.” The words still came from Randall, because Bridget could not speak.
“His wife came, too. Their daughter goes to my school.”
His wife. Their daughter. Words Bridget detested.
“But your ticket…”
“Dottie arranged everything. She said she’d keep it a surprise.”
“Ha!” Randall chuckled, draping his arm around Aimée now and turning toward Bridget as if the girl were a showpiece and he, the proud owner. “So Dottie held out on us, eh? I’ll bet she never even booked that flight for me.”
“No,” Aimée said with a smile.
“Well, let’s look at you, girl,” Randall said. “No worse for wear.”
As if any fourteen-year-old, with raven hair and azure eyes and a complexion the color of Mediterranean sand and the texture of cream from a Camargue farm, could look worse for any wear.
“You must be starving,” Randall continued, taking her suitcase and setting it in the hall, then leading her toward the table. “Pork tenderloin tonight. One of your favorites.”
Aimée sat down and looked at her mother. “Maman,” she said, “aren’t you going to say hello?”
It had probably been less than a minute since Aimée had appeared in the doorway, yet it seemed an eternity, a slow-motion scene, a classic depiction of perfect film noir. Bridget stood up because she knew that she must. “Ma petite chérie,” she said, moving toward her daughter in a measured, lumbered motion and planting right-then left-cheek kisses. “Forgive me. I was startled, that’s all.”
The petite chérie laughed and Randall said he’d get her a plate and Bridget returned to her seat.
She placed her napkin back in her lap, though she was damned if she remembered removing it in the first place. She took a hefty gulp from her wineglass. “I did not realize Mr. LaBrecque had business in New York.” It was amazing to Bridget that her voice sounded so steady, so nonchalant.
“Something to do with the horses,” Aimée said.
“Oh, mais oui,” Bridget replied. “And did they drive you here? Mr. LaBrecque and his wife?”
“No. He got me a limo. I said that would be fine.”
“It’s too bad they didn’t come with you,” Randall said, returning with a place setting of everything. “We could have asked them to dinner.”
If she hadn’t been drinking from her sturdy Waterford Lismore, Bridget’s grip might have snapped the stem.