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The Caprese salad rested beside a literal silver platter of roast guinea fowl. The unfinished jigsaw puzzle occupied one side of the table, the four of them the other half. A few connected pieces forged down into the puzzle interior—a chunk of a forehead, a fluff of hair. Enough for Evan to discern that it was a photo of some sort. The strays, mounded in the center, had collected a thin sheen of dust. The bow window beyond the table showed off a bucolic backyard, a detached office or guesthouse dwarfed by mature oaks.
Wine was served; Evan declined. Dinner-table patter was a foreign language to him, and it required his full focus. Plus: wine.
Sitting at his side, Ruby kept thumbing through her phone. “Sophia just came out on Instagram.”
“Good for her,” Mason said.
“Are you kidding me?” Ruby forked a bite into her mouth. “At this rate I’m the only hetero person in my class. I’m trying to get people tostopcoming out. I barely have any straight friends left.”
“I’ve realized that you don’t get more conservative as you get older,” Deborah remarked to Evan. “The world gets more liberal.”
“And—ug. Colby DM’d me. Again.” Ruby flashed the phone. It showed a meme of some actor type captioned with:HEY GUUURL. YOU’RE SUPER HOT.
Evan ventured for the first time into the stream of dinner conversation. “Colby?”
“My crazy high-school ex. And look—I get it. Everyone thinks their ex is crazy. You never hear anyone say, ‘I broke up with him because I realized I’m borderline and a nightmare to deal with.’ But Colby? Supremely limited. It’s like, dude, I get it that you think all I really want to hear is how beautiful I am, but the thing is I already know that I have pleasingly symmetrical features and the whole flush-of-youth thing going for me, so it only shows your own failure of imagination when you fall for the evolutionary fitness mask when I’m right here beneath it and I’m so much more and if you weren’t busy bragging about my looks, you would’ve realized I am the best resource you could ever think to have.”
Evan’s next bite of skewered fowl hovered a few inches from his plate. “Poor Colby.”
“Right. Side with him.” Ruby gave Evan a little backhanded thwap with her knuckles, her easy affection disarming. “And they’re all like that.” I even tried one of those wholesome-ish dating apps, but I kept matching with guys named Caden who want to chill and hang but don’t have any money to go out. Great. Thanks, dating apps. Something to make males of the speciesmorelazy and indecisive.” Her thumb flick-flick-flicked. “Arty Caden. Try-Hard Caden. Jock Caden.” She held the phone sideways. “At least Jock Caden is kinda cute.”
“The big muscly ones always turn into fatsos,” Deborah said.
“That’s why you date themnow, Mother.”
“That’s enough, dear,” Deborah said, rising to clear. “Phone away at the table.”
“But, Mom,” Ruby said with teenage bite, “I’m supposed to be getting back out in the world, remember?”
“Not withCadens.”
“Fine.” Ruby pocketed the phone. “I took a year off from UVA.And Dad thinks it’s not good for me to ‘stay holed up in the house I grew up in.’ But am I really supposed to give a shit about studying environmental science anymore when my brother was murdered?”
“I’ll let that pass as a rhetorical question,” Evan said.
“You are terrifyingly astute.” Ruby smirked. “You asked me about Johnny. Why don’t you askthem? Mom? Dad? Describe Johnny. Habits, personality, quirks.”
Evan blinked a few times. Ruby had commandeered the interrogation process, a charming if ruthless coup d’état.
“Describe Johnny?” Deborah sank back into her chair, cupping her hands around a mug of coffee. “He was a free spirit. The … hmm … the one we could never trust. Except to be kind. He was so gentle-hearted and … easy to love. He got all the light in the family.”
Ruby said, “Thanks, Mom.”
“Don’t complain, dear. You got the brains.”
“Double thanks, Mom.”
“Andthe backbone.”
“Keep digging,mère chérie.”
Mason placed his hand over Ruby’s and gave it a little squeeze. “And the work ethic.” A cautious glance in Evan’s direction. “Johnny lacked discipline. And yet he always managed to get his way. I always said if he’d applied himself, he would have been a brilliant lawyer.”
Deborah’s smile stiffened. “Yes. You did say that. Always.”
Evan pressed through the tension. “Would it be characteristic for him to wind up at a party house in the Hamptons?”
Mason considered for a moment. “I’d say so. He ran with whatever crowd could offer the most adventure. Party people who blow around from this scene to that.”
