Dad collapsing back in his chair.
“For God’s sake, explain to me how it helps Blake that I pretend I think that brainless twat is worth my time, or hers. I’m not surprised Rix saw him fucking another woman. He’s barely above an unneutered lapdog, rutting against the furniture.”
Dad holding the table.
“I cannot believe you said that about Chad. He’s a Head!”
Toe the line.
“Good God, woman, listen to yourself!”
The Helena and Edward Show is fucked up, baby.
Mum was opening her mouth.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
Both of them looked to me.
Rix crowded me.
I stared at my parents.
“Just stop it. Can you not see how awful this is? How ugly it is?”
I focused on my mother.
And kept going.
“Mum, enough. I cannot even begin to imagine how it would be helpful for any of us to pretend we’re okay with Blake settling for a man who would betray her that way ever, much less on the eve of their wedding. It’s lunacy not only that you expect Dad and me to show, but that you’d have any part of it. Dad’s not going. Rix is not going. I’m not going. And frankly, you should not go. The united front this family should make is that we’re behind Blake, and we don’t think it’s all right for a second that someone treat her so unconscionably. Honestly, take Dad up on using his assistants to cancel. There’s still time.”
“If we cancel, people will know Blake and Chad are having issues,” Mum retorted.
“They are!” I cried. “Just last night, he was caught fucking another woman!”
“Baby,” Rix murmured, his hand flat and pressing on the small of my back.
That felt comforting, but I shook my head to him.
“Rix, no.” I turned to Mum. “And while I’m sharing my truth, you and Blake have got to stop dumping all your garbage on Dad.”
I heard Dad make a noise.
I ignored it because Mum’s eyes were dangerously narrow.
“If you still love him and want his attention, then tell him and see where he’s at with that and maybe see a counselor. If you don’t love him, and this is for spite, please, God, for all of us, especially Dad, get a life.”
A rod slammed right down her spine, and she snapped, “I do not still love your father.”
“Then leave him alone. For God’s sake. Live your life. Let him live his. Can you think for one second what it’s like to be your daughter, the product of both of you, and watch you be so incredibly nasty to each other all the time?”
“Alex,” Dad murmured.
I turned on him. “You too. You try to avoid it, but it doesn’t take long for you to fall right in. What’s it going to take for you to stop doing it, Dad? A heart attack?”
“I’m in perfect health, darling,” he said quietly.
“Well I’m not, mentally,” I returned. “I’m fed up with all this tired, regurgitated shit.”
“Alexandra, you—” Mum began.
Rix cut her off.
“Alex said a lot you need to process. How about you all let things lie as they are and take some time to do that?”
“I barely know who you are,” Mum sniffed. “Why on earth would I do what you say?”
“Because you love your daughter?” Rix asked by way of answer.
Mum’s chin clicked down.
“Why don’t we all take a moment, move this out of the hall, perhaps have another cup of coffee…Helena, I have tea, and discuss how we’re going to support Blake through this,” Dad suggested.
“I have one hundred and fifty people coming to brunch in less than two hours, Ned. I don’t have time for tea,” Mum bit.
Dad sighed.
Mum looked among us and remarked acidly, “I can’t believe you’re all abandoning me like this.”
“Mum,” I whispered.
She homed in on me. “Especially you, Alexandra. This is your sister.”
Rix pressed closer, and I knew he was going to say something.
Dad got there first.
“Helena, go.”
“Ned—”
“Enough, just go.”
“Blake will not thank any of you,” she bit out.
The defeat came back for Dad.
In his tone.
“Of course she won’t. And it saddens me how obvious it is how we managed to raise a girl with such abysmal manners, a failure that I fully participated in it, but you still don’t see it.”
“Always the last word,” she sniped.
Dad looked to his shoes.
She glared at him, at me, at Rix, back at me, then she twirled and marched out.
She was in such a tizzy, the winterberries in the enormous dahlia, mum and winterberry arrangement that sat on the grand table in the middle of the even grander foyer trembled as she stormed by.
I turned to my father.
“Dad—”
His head came up. “I do. You are correct. I let her push my buttons. I’m so furious with her for…for everything, I hang on to that and argue with her to remind myself of what an excellent decision it was for me to finish things with her. Did it occur to me once what you girls would think? How you would absorb that? It is impossible that my answer to that is no. But until you mentioned it just moments ago, it was no. And I will admit to you, I feel that like a blow. And now that it does occur to me, as your fiancé suggested, I need to ponder that.”
“Okay, but I’m here for a visit. I’m not home very often. Maybe you can do that later, and we can spend the morning together,” I suggested.
And for the last time that day, he looked me in the eyes.
“I’m very glad you spoke your truth, Alex, but this is mine. I was a terrible father. I know that. I live with that every day. Even as I was being that when you needed me, as my mother warned me to have a better mind to my children, I was torn between family obligation and just simply family. I chose poorly. Even so, all three of the most important women in my life at one point abandoned me. You did it when you were a little girl, and I’ve missed you since the moment I lost you.”
My frame locked and my throat closed.
Rix growled unintelligibly.
I knew Dad heard it, but he ignored it, turned…
And walked away.
Chapter 23
The Agreement
Elsa Cohen
“The Elsa Exchange”
Celebrity News and Interviews
YouTube Channel
* * *
“Oh, my wonderful watchers, we have a special report! As ever, I wanted to get the news to you as quickly as I could, though as yet I cannot say what’s causing these unusual happenings. However, under not one single hat could be found the head of the bride who will be a Head in but a few days. Yes, I’m talking about the most anticipated brunch of the autumn season, given by the Marchioness of Norton for her daughter Blake as part of the festivities leading to the big event this weekend, Blake Sharp marrying Chad Head.”
Zoom in on Elsa.
“Or should that sentence end in a question mark?”
Zoom out from Elsa.