“Mm. Well, they’re gorgeous.”
I looked down at Mom’s china with the tiny blue flowers around the rim.
Then Vanessa turned to me.
“Your father tells me you all used to spend summers at some lake house. Is it big? Is it winterized? I’ve been dying to see it.”
“It’s small,” Marcus said flatly. “Dad built it himself.”
“Oh, how darling. Robert, we should really go up there. Or maybe list it. Just as a conversation.”
“Vanessa…”
“I said as a conversation, darling.”
After dinner, she went upstairs to change into something “more comfortable” and returned in cashmere that cost more than my mortgage payment.
Marcus caught my elbow in the hallway.
“Di. Tell me you see it.”
“I see it.”
“Then say something.”
“He’s happy, Marcus. Look at him. He’s smiling.”
“He’s medicated. There is a difference.”
I didn’t answer.
I walked toward the kitchen because I couldn’t stand there in the house where we grew up and admit my brother might be right.
Dad was at the counter.
Vanessa slid a folded document across the granite toward him.
“Just the update we talked about, darling. The accountant already looked it over.”
Dad picked up the pen.
He didn’t read it.
He signed.
Then he looked up and saw me.
For a second, something crossed his face.
Not guilt.
Not confusion.
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