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Rafe seemed undaunted, though, and helped her lie down amid the fluff. “You stay here for a while. If you’re needed downstairs, I’ll come get you.” He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead, shut the blinds on the windows, and left quietly.
Angie slept until morning.
* * *
She woke to her blinds opened. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Harper said, shoving her blinds up. “Our esteemed uncle’s coming in an hour to talk to us about God knows what.”
“Harp, geez! I have to go home and shower and change.”
“Hurry it up then. Be back here by two o’clock.”
“Two o’clock? It can’t possibly be one.”
“It is, Sis. You’ve been up here twenty hours or so, give or take a minute or two.”
“Can’t this wait? We just buried our father, for God’s sake.”
“Believe me, I told him that. He says he has to talk to us now. That it’s urgent.”
“Is Catie coming over?”
“She and Chad are already here, downstairs.”
Angie looked down at her wrinkled black suit. “I can’t wear this. Tell you what, go get something out of Mama’s closet for me, will you? Nothing too frumpy.”
“Since when does our mother dress like a frump? I’ll have Catie pick something. You get in the shower and get cleaned up.”
Thank goodness her bathroom was still fully stocked. The shower warmed and massaged her aching body.
She dressed in a beige pantsuit that Catie must have set on her bed while she was showering and then walked downstairs. She found her mother, brother, sister, Chad, and Uncle Jefferson in the room that had been her father’s office. Jefferson sat behind her father’s desk.
A shiver niggled at the back of her neck. This felt all wrong.
“Ah, the lovely Angelina,” Uncle Jefferson said, “my mother’s namesake.”
“Yes. Uh…hello.”
“Sit down. You of all people will be the most interested in what I have to say.”
Angie gulped. What on earth did he mean?
“Have a seat, my dear.” Jefferson pointed to an empty chair.
Angie sat, still in a daze from the memorial. “What’s this all about?”
“We have no idea,” Harper said. “He wouldn’t tell us till we were all here.” He turned to his uncle. “We’re all here now. Let’s get on with it.”
“Of course.” Jefferson set a document on the desk. “You might be wondering what this is.”
“Not really,” Harper said.
“You will in a minute. Before I read it to you, I want to tell you all a little story.”
“How about you tell us why none of us knew you existed till now?” Harper said, his voice not happy.
“You knew I existed, didn’t you, Mia?”
Mia? Angie had never heard anyone but her father refer to her mother as Mia.
