Chapter 7: The Bordeaux

Marguerite Moncrieff's dining table sat twelve, and she had put me in the chair next to the pug.

The dog looked at me and sneezed.

"Sunday dinner is a family tradition," Marguerite said from the head of the table. "Even for people who are no longer family."

"Then why am I here?"

"Because of this."

She slid a tablet down the cloth until it stopped against my bread plate.

The photo from the loading dock filled the screen: me on the floor, my shoe off, Quincy on one knee with his hand around my ankle.

The headline read Ellerby Heiress Reduced to Elevator Fling.

They had spelled Ellerby with one n.

"They got my name wrong," I said. "I'll ask for a correction."

"You'll ask for nothing," Marguerite said. "You'll sit there and listen to what happens if I send this to your grandmother's friends at the bank."

Quincy, on my other side, said, "Mother."

"Be quiet, Quincy."

Posy sat across from him in a blue dress, folding her napkin into a smaller and smaller square.

"I think the photo is unkind," she said. "Tilda looks like she's in pain."

"I was in pain. The elevator had expired."

"Of course you were," Posy said, and gave me a smile that took up most of her face.

The soup came, and then the wine.

The waiter filled my glass to the very top of the rim, so that it shook when he put it down.

"You always loved a full glass, Tilda," Marguerite said.

I knew the next line of this scene by heart.

Marguerite would say something about my grandmother's debts.

Then she would say something about Posy's background.

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