And God wasn’t there to take away the anger he felt in that moment. He didn’t have the wherewithal to jockey for power in the same way that Bishop Rafferty did, but he was smart enough to use the few tools at his disposal.
“I’m still not funding the pre-K program if she’s there.” Rafferty sounded resolute in that.
“That’s fine. We’ll find a way.” Patrick only hoped that he was speaking the truth.
* * *
—
SASHA DIDN’T SEE PATRICK for several weeks after the bake sale, and she convinced herself that it was a good thing. She didn’t have much time to think about it, because her sister was auditioning to be the most depressed soon-to-be-divorcée in a nonexistent cosmic contest.
By week three of her sister drinking a bottle of wine a day, starting at around eleven on her couch, Sasha decided that Hannah’s plan of putting her to work was indeed the less disastrous option. Especially after Madison had drunkenly reorganized her closet while she’d been at an event sponsored by the Art Institute auxiliary board.
Sasha still couldn’t find her favorite pair of shoes.
Keeping her sister close enough to keep an eye on her seemed like the most prudent course of action.
It actually worked out pretty well. Madison was seventy-five percent as effective as Hannah at menacing vendors to deliver on time and on budget, and that freed Sasha up to smooth the feathers of nervous brides and mothers of brides who reminded her of her own mother. The terrifying ones.
And although she hadn’t seen Patrick, she’d gone out with Nathan two more times. He was starting to feel like a friend, and she was counting that as a good thing. She wasn’t in lust with him, but that was fine. The man she was currently in lust with was the furthest thing from good for her. And if she couldn’t rid herself of impure thoughts about Patrick Dooley, it just meant that she had to work harder to replace them or learn to live without lust. People did that, right?
Regardless, Nathan hadn’t tried to get physical with her. Sasha must be giving out a very strong “don’t touch me” vibe. She felt like she should just be grateful that he kept asking her out, which gave her the chance to clench down really hard and try to form feelings for him.
He was smart, funny, and passionate about his job and hobbies. She should be falling for him and forgetting all about Patrick any day now.
She also should have known that the peaceful accord she’d reached with Madison would not be allowed to last. Moira had a sixth sense for when her daughters were not pushing each other to be their best—or at least not at each other’s throats. She had to stamp out their impulse to be friendly, or at least humane, toward one another so that her daughters would not rise up against her and stop taking her bullshit.
So, of course, Moira showed up in the condo that she had a key to because Moira and her husband owned it. She was lying in wait when Sasha and Madison came home from a wedding that had gone well. They were laughing when they came in the door, so Moira’s face was markedly constipated when she stood up and said, “So this is where you’ve run off to.”
Moira Finerghty looked perfect, even though she’d likely been traveling all day. Her dark brown bob was as severe as it always was, swooped down almost over one eye. She was dressed in a black cape, a crisp white blouse with a pussy bow, and wide-legged wool pants that emphasized her ruthlessly maintained lean figure.
Even though Sasha was about the same height, somehow her mother always seemed to manage to look down at her. It was really quite the feat.
Sasha put herself between her mother and Madison. She was used to the slings and arrows of her mother being a total bitch, but Madison had always done the right thing. She’d always been one of the two golden children. Her mother’s judgment would hurt her more because she hadn’t had the time or the reason to develop a thick skin.
“You look tired, Sasha.” Her mother looked her up and down and the room filled with oozing, black derision.
“Thanks, Mom.” Moira hated being called “Mom.” She thought it sounded too pedestrian. She much preferred being called “Mother.”
Moira sniffed. “Would you excuse yourself from the room? I’m here to see Madison and talk some sense into her.”
“I think she’s making plenty of sense for a change.” Sasha couldn’t believe that she’d said that. She almost expected to get slapped across the face. Or have her mother drag her into the bathroom by her ear and wash her mouth out with Dr. Bronner’s soap.
She was shocked when her mother merely shook her head as though she’d been slapped by the words and said, “I see you’ve been trying to influence her.” Moira pushed past Sasha and put a gentle hand on Madison’s arm. She was smart enough to know that she couldn’t just savage her youngest daughter right out of the box. She would try to urge and cajole Madison back into her version of marital bliss—which was being married at all. “You can’t get a divorce, Madison.”
Madison surprised both her mother and Sasha by saying, “Why can’t I?”
“Because we don’t do that in our family.” Moira looked at Sasha over her shoulder and said, “Just because your errant sister seems to think that she has forever and a day to find a husband doesn’t mean that you can let a perfectly good one slip away.”
Sasha rolled her eyes in her sister’s direction, hoping to give her strength. It seemed to work. “Of course I can. Just because he’s perfectly good doesn’t mean he’s perfectly good for me.”
Wow, wisdom from her basic-as-fuck sister in the crucible of their mother’s twisted sense of traditionalism.
“People get divorced every day.” Sasha was trying to be helpful, but she had to back up when her mother rounded on her.
“Not in this family.”
Madison pushed past her mother into the room. “It’s not really your business, Mom.”
“Of course it’s my business.” The vein in Moira’s forehead was throbbing, and Sasha was afraid that she would have a stroke.
“Can I get you a martini, Mother?” That might calm her down a smidge. Or at least keep her occupied deriding Sasha’s choice of gin.
“That would be the least you can do.”
Sasha busied herself doing that while her mother sat Madison on the couch and harangued her. At this rate, her sister would be back on a plane to New York within the hour. Sasha gave thanks for the fact that she’d fled the family roost after high school, never to return. That move had disappointed her parents, but it had set the tone for the rest of her adult life. They didn’t expect her to bend to their will, and that meant she was off the hook when she wasn’t on the phone with them or at their home. Out of sight, out of mind.