“I have someone who sees to the legal matters around the business,” I got in. My voice sounded so small, I don’t think Boone even heard me.
“And if you haven’t already, put together a will, Clara Belle. One that will protect your company, in the event of your death, from those close to you who might have less-than-honorable intentions when it comes to their interest in you all of a sudden.”
“Am I to infer from your tone that you’re referring to individuals outside of her own family who have less-than-honorable intentions?” Boone didn’t hide the accusation in his tone.
“I think we’ve all heard enough from you for one morning, Mr. Cavanaugh. I’m talking to my daughter directly—I’m certainly not going through the snake pouring poison into her ear.” Dad waved his finger between him and me, implying we had the tight bond that some dads had with their daughters. Most everyone at the table probably knew better though. “Besides, this is a family breakfast. You might be trying for a second time to weasel your way into it, but I can assure you if I have anything to say about it, you’ll be as successful marrying into the Abbotts as you were the first time you made your play.”
“Dad . . .” I said, but it barely registered a decibel.
Shouts and protests broke out around the table—my dad shoving out of his chair, still popping off insults at Boone; Ford beside him, adding fuel to the fire; and my mom bouncing in her seat, about to cry from the way her “perfect” wedding week kick-off breakfast was turning into a scene out of a reality television series. If the table hadn’t been so large, I didn’t doubt my dad wouldn’t have already thrown it over.
“Dad, stop,” I tried again, but it was useless.
Boone, who’d stayed calm during the first brunt of my dad’s attack, was shoving out of his seat, firing back insults and accusations just as lashing. That was the point I tuned out.
I shouldn’t have come back. No one really wanted me here anyway. Charlotte had only invited me because our mom had insisted and Mom had only insisted because I was the sister of the bride and what would the five hundred guests think if the sister of the bride wasn’t there? The Abbott Family Fa?ade would no doubt be shattered for good over that scandal.
Invitation or not, I shouldn’t have come. I brought dissent and disaster upon this family. They brought the same upon me. We were better off without each other, something I’d accepted the day I stepped foot into my first apartment back in California and realized it felt more like home than the one I’d grown up in ever had.
Everyone still at each other’s throats, I quietly pushed out of my chair, stood, and silently left the room. If anyone noticed me leave, no one called out to me. If anyone cared I was leaving, no one expressed it.
I passed Frieda in the hall, her face settled into a concerned expression, but before she could ask me if I was okay, I nodded and kept going. I had to get out of this house and find some fresh air. Or some fresher air at least.
I went through the back of the house, shoving through the screen door the house staff were required to use. I’d always felt more comfortable passing through that old side door than the sweeping double ones at the front anyway.
The moment my feet touched the grass, I kicked off my sandals, pulled the bow out of my hair, and jogged toward the edge of the grounds. I knew where I was going, but I couldn’t get there fast enough. I felt as though I had a rubber band around my waist, and the farther I got from the house and my family, the harder it fought to pull me back. The harder I had to fight to keep pulling away. If only I could just find the point where that rubber band would snap and the connection could be cut once and for all, life could be so much easier down here.
For once, I could feel as apathetic about my family as I pretended I was.
The tire swing was still there, dangling from one of the big oak trees creeping along the streambed, more of the tire covered by Spanish moss than was exposed. I supposed without me around, there was no one to climb through it and swing away hours of the day, searching for the answers to their problems in the steady pendulum of a rope tied to a circle of rubber.