Chapter 9: Family Vote

"Three times what?" I said. "What did I ask you for?"

"To move out," Colin said. "Away from my mother's house, just the two of us."

"And you said next month."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He looked at the cold tea.

"Because I thought there was time," he said.

"Because she's my mother, and every time she needed something, I fixed it first. I thought you'd wait."

"Did I?"

"For fourteen months."

I took a slow breath.

"Then stop saying it," I said. "I don't want a promise. I want you to watch what you do this month."

"Okay."

"Don't say okay like that."

He smiled, a little crooked.

"I'll watch," he said.

At seven-thirty the next morning, Margaret's housekeeper knocked on my door and said the family was waiting upstairs.

I hadn't slept.

I dressed in my own jeans and a sweater from the back of a drawer.

Colin was waiting at the foot of the stairs in his suit.

"Do you know what this is?" I said.

"A foundation meeting."

"Why are we invited?"

"I don't know," he said, and his thumb went along his jaw.

I decided then that I'd watch the thumb as closely as the man.

Margaret's dining room was set for twelve.

The same relatives sat in the same chairs, with the same cold eggs in front of them.

Lindsey stood at Margaret's shoulder with a binder.

"Kathleen, Colin, sit," Margaret said. "This will be brief."

I sat.

Colin sat.

Margaret folded her hands.

"The Foundation's gala is in five weeks," she said. "It's our largest event of the year. For two years, Kathleen has chaired the planning committee."

"Did I do a good job?"

"You were adequate."

"I'll take adequate," I said.

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