THINGS HAD SETTLED down with Bridgette and she agreed to join us for a dinner at the Davenports, something none of us were particularly looking forward to, especially with Jon's murder still hanging over our heads.
We picked Bridgette up first and arrived at the Davenports’ at eight, bearing a bottle of expensive wine. The staff served a catered meal of fried swordfish and Greek salad, and we mostly ate in silence with Bridgette making a few unsuccessful attempts at small talk. During dessert, while we sipped on wine, Mrs. Davenport—I still couldn't get used to calling her Louise—asked us about children. "When do you plan to start giving us grandchildren?" she asked, not unkindly. Still, the question made me nervous.
"We haven't talked too much about that, yet," I said. I wanted kids in a theoretical sort of way, but I wasn't ready to start having them. I had too much to do with my life first.
Mr. Davenport scowled at his wife and then locked eyes with Ash. "Of course, you'll have to name your first born son Ashton Davenport. And you," he said to me, "will be taking the Davenport name."
Ash shook his head. "Catelyn is hyphenating to keep her own name. And we are definitely not having another Ashton Davenport. Our children will have their own identities and will not be shackled with a father who is so arrogant and self-absorbed that he would expect his son to become his photocopy."
Before the two men could explode at each other, Bridgette spoke up in a small voice. "What about the name Jon?"
The room deflated and Ash squeezed my hand under the table. Even Mr. Davenport had the grace to back down and shut up.
"You should have a baby now," Bridgette said. "Then I'll get to be an aunty. You'd both make wonderful parents. No child would ever be more loved."
I smiled at her. "Thank you. I'm glad you think we'd be good at it. But I still have law school to finish and a career to start. I'm not sure this is the right time."
She frowned, a strand of white-blond hair falling over her face. "You don't think you can do both? Lots of women are able to have a career and a baby. Besides, you have a husband who can be home a lot with the baby."
I looked at Ash and wondered what he was thinking. We'd talked about kids lightly, as in we both wanted one or two some time in the distant future, but we hadn't worked out the logistics of who would stay home with them and how that would work. We had time for that. We wanted to get married and enjoy some time with just the two of us first.
Walking around the table, the waiter offered us refills on the wine, perhaps eager to cheer things up. Bridgette covered her glass in response. "Still working on the first one."
"I'd like more please," I said, hoping to drown out thoughts of Jon.
Ash told the waiter to leave the bottle. He always seemed to get drunk around his parents.
As we ate in silence, Ash's cell phone rang and he excused himself from the table, his pie untouched and his wine glass empty. When he returned, he looked worried. "Last time I talked to my P.I., he said he might be onto something with Jon's death."
We all waited to hear what that something was.
"But now I can't reach him. I just got a call confirming what I feared. Jim is missing."
Chapter Twenty
Decisions
ONE MONTH AGO
"MY DAD HATES Jon," Bridgette said as she stared into the serene lake we stood in front of. "He told me to break up with him. Threatened me. Yelled.” She paused and tried to slow her breathing. "It was bad, Catelyn. Really bad. Like, maybe he'll disown me bad." Bridgette threw a stone in the lake, making it skip a few paces before it fell into the water, casting ripples around it as it sank.
I tried to send my stone into skipping mode, but it went straight to sinking mode. "They're your parents. They love you. No matter how mad your dad gets, he's not going to disown you." At least, I didn't think he would. "I can't imagine disowning my daughter for any reason."
She threw another perfect stone skipping across the lake and I sighed and just tossed mine in, knowing I'd never get mine to skip.
"I could never do that to any child of mine either, but my dad, he was just so irate. I've never seen him like that. I think he really might. I think he actually hates Jon so much that if I stay with him, I will lose my family."
I considered my next words carefully as a breeze swept my hair off my neck and cooled me. Closing my eyes, with the feel of the sun on my face, I tried to put myself in her shoes, but I couldn't. I didn't have a family to lose. "Sometimes you just have to make your own choices and stand by them. Sometimes it's better to rip the bandage off and if you're going to lose someone, lose them, rather than hovering in that space of uncertainty."
I turned to look at my friend. "But you're going to have to decide who's more important to you. And then you're going to have to be ready to face the consequences of that choice. But don't be blind to what you are choosing. And to whom you are choosing."