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“And? How is the dear thing?”
“Apparently, her daughter moved her into a home a few years ago.”
“You spoke to her?”
“I spoke to the building manager,” I said before remembering that he’d asked me not to identify him.
“Mr. Harris? That horrid little man? He cornered me in the elevator one day, tried to kiss me. It was awful. That dreadful space between his teeth where food always gathered. I actually had to kick him to get him off me. Can’t imagine what he told you.”
“He said you conned Mrs. Kernohan into giving you a sizable amount of money…”
“If you consider five thousand dollars a sizable amount,” Elyse said. “And I hardly conned her. I’d asked her for a loan, but she insisted it was a gift. Such a lovely woman.”
“Anything else?” my father asked, his voice registering his impatience.
“No,” I admitted. “That’s about it.” It seemed Elyse had an answer for everything.
“Then you’ve said your piece and you can be on your way.”
“Dad…” I began.
“We’re finished here.” He turned, started walking from the room.
“Vic, wait,” Elyse said. “We can’t just leave things like this.”
“Consider them left.”
“But I feel terrible about what’s happened.”
“You have nothing to feel terrible about. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.”
“I know that. But I hate being a source of friction between you and your daughters.”
“You aren’t,” he told her. “This is on them.”
“I’m sure they thought they were only looking out for you.”
“I don’t need looking out for.”
“Everybody needs looking out for,” Elyse said. “Come on, darling. Try to see it from their side. If I can understand their concern, surely you can at least try. Jodi hired me to be your housekeeper, not your wife. Their mother’s death, our sudden marriage, well, it’s a lot to take in. And they’re understandably hurt that they weren’t included in our plans. But they’ll get over it, and so will you. You’re their father, and they worry about you. Please, can’t we all just try to get along?”
“Oh, she’s good,” Tracy whispered.
Our father pushed his shoulders back, took a series of long, deep breaths. “There will be no more checking up on Elyse, no more interfering in my life, no more ‘looking out for me,’ ” he said. “Am I making myself clear?”
“Very,” Tracy said.
“As a bell,” I added.
“And no more visits to lawyers,” he said, a sly grin pulling at the sides of his mouth.
Tracy gasped.
“You knew about that,” I acknowledged.
“Thought you’d gotten away with that one, did you?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye underlining his delight at putting one over on us. “No such luck. Ronald Miller called me shortly after you left his office, told me he felt I should know about your little visit. He declined to discuss the specifics, of course, but I think I can guess. There are to be no more such visits. Are we understood?”
“Understood,” Tracy said.
I nodded.
“Understood?” our father said again, this time directly to me.
“Understood,” I obliged him by saying.
“Good. Then you can be on your way.”
We watched him stride from the room.
“I’ll show you out,” Elyse said.
