Chapter 11: Pru's Study

Pru Aldrich's house in Brookline has a front hall with a black-and-white floor and a study at the end of it.

I arrived at nine sharp, in my cleanest apron, with a tin of orange-blossom shortbread I'd baked at four that morning because I couldn't sleep.

Pru opened the study door herself.

"Sit," she said.

The room was lined with books and framed photographs, mostly of Cass.

Cass in a graduation gown, Cass on a pony, Cass at fifteen in a purple dress with her arms around a skinny girl in braces.

I set the tin on the desk, and Pru looked at it.

"Shortbread," she said. "My grandmother made it. Plain butter, nothing else."

"This one has orange blossom."

"Yes, I assumed it would." She took one anyway. "Mm. It's very good. I suppose that's no surprise."

She sat down across from me and folded her hands.

She did not look angry.

She looked like a woman who had thought for a long time about what to say and had decided to say it simply.

"You and my niece," Pru said.

"Pru..."

"I'm not asking. I saw. And I have eyes."

I sat very straight.

"I won't pretend," I said.

"Good. I dislike pretending."

She took a bite of shortbread and chewed.

"Lark is twenty-five. She is a grown woman who feeds seals for a living. I am not going to tell her who to love."

I stared at her.

"You're not?" I said stupidly.

"No."

"But the family law, Pru. You've said it every day."

"The family law is meant to keep her from being toyed with."

Pru brushed crumbs off her fingers.

"Is she a toy to you, Noor?"

"No."

"Then it was never about whom she loves. It's about Cass."

"Cass?"

"When I married her father, Cass was fifteen and furious. She hated me for six months."

"I remember. She said you were a frozen fish."

Pru smiled, faintly.

"Yes, I heard. The day of the wedding, she came to me in the hallway of the church."

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