Chapter 13: Both Sons

Thirty people sat holding oyster forks and studying the tablecloth.

Rainer folded his napkin into a square and set it beside his plate.

"Then I refuse it," he said.

Linwood's smile stayed exactly where it was. "Refuse what, my boy?"

"The Trust. The will. The chair at your right hand."

"If it only goes to the married son, I'll stay single and leave in what I'm wearing."

"It's a good coat," Tiernan said from the foot of the table.

He was already walking up the length of the cloth, with his hands in his pockets.

"I never wanted your cannery, Father. I wanted the rent to annoy you."

Somebody near the minister let out a laugh and swallowed it.

Linwood turned his glass a quarter turn on the linen.

"You mistake me," he said. "I am not asking either of you to refuse anything."

"A refusal is a luxury, and you'll find the snow very educational."

"Miss Pascoe holds the whole of it in her hand."

"Whichever she names takes the house, and the other takes the road."

Thirty faces came around to me.

I had been handed to someone once already, at a microphone, and I had taken the paper off the tray.

This was the same trick in a warmer room.

"No," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You've made the prize prettier, that's all."

"Neither of these men asked me to choose to save his inheritance, and I won't be the knife you cut them with."

I reached into the pocket of my mother's navy dress and took out the key to the east hall room.

I laid it on the white cloth between the oysters and the champagne.

"Your guest is leaving, Mr. Hallowell."

"The forty-five days stand. I signed nothing that says I sleep under your roof."

"I'll be on the Pascoe wharf, and I'll walk up to your dais on the twentieth."

The sheriff looked into his glass.

I walked out through the lemon trees without anyone stopping me.

Rainer caught up with me in the hall, outside the cloakroom door.

He kept three feet of marble between us, the way he had since the roof.

"I owe you the reason," he said, low.

"The hour. Why I asked for it."

"I'm listening."

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