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My mother’s gaze shifts to Tess. Tess is just a useful tool to my mother, something she can wield to force me to walk a corporate path. Matilda is now composing some new dialogue in her head. I know the signs. But first she has to acknowledge Conner, who waves his hand in the air like a schoolboy.
“Do you have something to add, Conner?”
“Is there cake?” He keeps his hand up. “I thought I heard you say there’d be cake.”
“Thereiscake.” Dani jumps to her feet. “We brought a strawberry shortcake and Tess made a chocolate pie.”
Charlotte starts running for the kitchen. “I want chocolate pie with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. No,twomaraschino cherries.”
Dani communicates silently with Tess in some kind of best friend code and the two of them follow Charlotte to the kitchen.
Matilda props her hands on her hips, now frustrated that her thunder has been stolen by cake.
Alta snickers over her sister’s irritation and pours herself more wine. She’ll fall out of her chair if she gets any drunker.
Henley manages to be helpful and steers the conversation to football. Conner has another home game coming up this weekend. The Cyclones would probably be undefeated if the defense would pull their weight. Conner and the offensive line can’t run the whole show.
My mother cares nothing for football and only takes an interest in Conner at all because of the status points that come with having a nephew who’s a pro quarterback. She doesn’t say a word during all the football banter and instead watches me like she’s analyzing the best way to reformat a project she’s dissatisfied with. That annoys me enough to do something I never do.
I’m going to mention my father.
“The anniversary is coming up.” I say this loudly, cutting right into the middle of one of Henley’s sentences.
Henley pauses, so puzzled that he looks like he’s choking, but my mother’s expression darts to wariness, shaded with something else.
Annoyance, or maybe pain.
There’s no telling with her. Whatever feelings she has for her dead husband are kept under wraps. Always have been.
“I meant the anniversary of my father’s murder,” I say to Henley because he’s still sitting there like a baffled dumbass. “Ethan Lyonne. You might have heard his name once or twice over the years.”
Henley, to his credit, doesn’t snap back. “Of course. I’m sorry, I should have remembered the date is approaching.”
Alta decides to put down her wine glass and chime in. “Ethan was outrageously handsome. At least, from what I remember. I haven’t seen a photo of him in a while.” She looks pointedly around the room as if expecting one to appear.
Matilda doesn’t fire back at her sister. She’d have plenty to say if she did. Alta has her own dead husband. Gage’s father. A disgusting piece of trash named Christos Silvestro who stole Gage from his family, forced him to be a crime boss apprentice, and threatened everyone Gage cares about. Christos eventually choked on his own tumors. Good fucking riddance, asshole.
But Matilda doesn’t even appear to hear Alta. She just stares at me with abnormal ashen silence and now I almost feel bad for taunting her.
Charlotte returns waving a can of whipped cream in the air, breaking the tension and giving Matilda something else to get miffed about.
“Sweetheart, you need to put that can down before it explodes in your hand.”
Charlotte just shakes the can some more. “If I explode, do I get to stay home from school tomorrow?”
She cracks me up.
When Matilda starts to grow more agitated, Charlotte gently deposits the can on the table and turns to me with an angelic grin.
“Look, Micah. I survived!”
Yeah, she’s definitely my sister.
Dani and Tess follow with dessert. Tess hugs my arm when she returns to her seat, meaning she’s not too annoyed after getting blindsided by the Vegas revelation. We’ll talk later. I’ll convince her that a prolonged vacation to Vegas is just the mental health break she needs. And if that doesn’t do the trick, I’ll give her a demonstration of just how talented my tongue is so she knows why she can’t live without it for two months.
After Conner has devoured half the cake on his own and Charlotte has finished her tower of whipped cream with a slice of pie, she wants everyone to run to the backyard. She’s going to show us how Total can catch a squeaky tennis ball.
Alta is the only one who refuses and stays put with her wine bottle. I doubt Charlotte cares. She’s already pulling Tess toward the grass in the dark backyard.
