I don’t even try to hold back my laughter and, much to my surprise, neither does my father, who hasn’t done more than grunt in years, at least in front of me. “My boy,” he says again to Derek. “You really have a lot to learn about Emily. She works for me for a reason. Like I said, she can’t be intimidated.”
Derek is not any more amused than my mother is, who downs her wine with a disapproving look on her face. So does she want Emily to put him in his place or not?
“If she knew how often you threaten my inheritance,” Derek says, looking from our father to her, “she’d rethink her attitude.”
“You know, Maggie,” my father says, looking at my mother, “I think it’s time I share the three versions of my will I’ve had drawn up, as well as the instructions I’ve given my attorney.”
My mother pales with this news. “Three versions? I thought you only had one.”
“That changed two weeks ago,” he says, no hesitation to his words, “when I took stock of my imminent death and decided I needed to evaluate who is worthy of gratitude when I’m dead.”
Like the man has ever shown gratitude to anyone in his entire adult life, I think, but he’s making his point. His money isn’t spoken for until he’s dead. My mother and my brother won’t get it unless they please him in the immediate future. And as if he’s driving home my thoughts, he glances around the table and adds, “In case I haven’t been clear, I still haven’t made a decision on who inherits what.”
Derek and I lock gazes, his eyes boring into mine, emboldened with a challenge I answer in what becomes a push and pull of power between us, in which I discover something has changed in him, something I read deep in his eyes. He doesn’t give a fuck about the inheritance any more than I do. For me, that’s about the money I’ve made on my own, but I know from his legal troubles that he’s spent too much and saved too little. He should need his inheritance, and since I am now certain he does not, I have only one place this leads me. Someone has supplemented his income in an extensive way, and the likelihood that this is Martina, and that Derek is indebted to him in a far deeper way than I imagined, is not a good one.
“Are we ready for the soup?”
At the sound of a female voice, I glance up to find a fiftysomething woman in an apron, her dark hair tied at her nape, entering the room from a kitchen door to the left and back of my mother.
“My glass is empty” is my mother’s reply.
“As is mine,” my father says, and my gaze jerks to him at the request that is a contradiction to his new healthy habits he’d announced to us only an hour ago.
“What happened to no drinking, Father?” I ask.
“I couldn’t tolerate whiskey if I wanted to right now, son,” he replies dryly, allowing the woman to fill his glass and then lifting it. “Water. One of the only friends I can count on right now.”
His word choice, “one of the only friends,” is without question a jab at Mike, who I now connect to my mother, and perhaps my brother, and I wonder if my father too has made this connection. But are they both connected to Martina? There is the real question.
“My friend,” Derek says, holding up his glass. He downs the amber liquid before adding, “is one hell of a friend.” He motions to the server and then to his empty glass. “Another.”
My father waves between my glass and Emily’s. “Their glasses as well.” His attention settles on me. “Glenmorangie Pride 1981 Highland single-malt Scotch whiskey.”
“We’re celebrating Father’s news,” Derek inserts, the server filling his glass, only to have him down the contents and, at least to me, give off the impression that it’s more like he’s drinking away his misery.
“As we should,” I say as my glass is filled and Emily covers hers with her hand.
“No, thank you,” she tells the woman. “I’m a lightweight. I’ll stick with water.”
“We have wine,” my mother offers, holding up her goblet that is still empty. “It’s far less potent than whiskey.”
“But it’s all way too potent for me,” Emily assures her, giving one of her delicate little laughs. “There’s no telling what I’d say if I were drinking.”
“I think I might enjoy that,” my father muses. “But I wonder if my son would?”
“Come on, Father,” I say, draping my arm around Emily, sheltering her to me, and then lifting my glass with my free hand. “Do you really think Emily would be here if I were worried about you plying her with whiskey and making her talk?” I sip the whiskey, a spicy, nutty flavor spreading along my palate. “Damn, that’s good Scotch.” I lean into Emily’s ear and whisper, “But you taste better.”
She reaches over and grabs my leg, giving it a hard squeeze of warning, the exchange quirking my lips to the side while the scent of her, floral and sweet, reminds me of pleasure outside this room.
“Prepare to have your palates seduced by greatness.”
I glance up to find the chef now in the room, along with a male server carrying a tray filled with bowls. “Arrogant bastard, aren’t you?” my father demands.
“Simply honest,” the chef retorts, personally claiming a bowl, which he sets in front of my father. “Tomato soup,” he declares. “Your favorite, I understand.” The chef waits as if he expects my father will actually taste it.
“Move on, Chef,” is the grumbled response he earns instead, to which the chef grimaces but doesn’t debate, doing as he’s told, and in a matter of minutes, we all have iced tea in our glasses, and bowls in front of us.
“Bon appétit,” the chef says with a grand bow, and then he and his crew leave the room.
And the instant we’re alone, my mother lifts her spoon and waves it around the table. “No more conversation until you’ve all sampled the food.” There is a motherly snap to her voice that has us all lifting our utensils. “It’s unbelievably good,” she adds. “Now all of you, confirm.”
Nostalgia bleeds into the moment, reminding me of family dinners where my mother, not my father, was in charge. Also like then, in unison, we do as we’re told, dipping our spoons into our bowls, and collectively, mouths open, we all take a bite. Instantly, the sweet flavor of sugar touches my tongue before it immediately turns to a delicious spice. A sound of satisfaction in one way, shape, or form seems to move around the table, an odd moment of unity and satisfaction, significant in that we all agree on something. The soup is good. It’s small, but it’s true. We all like it. We all agree.
I have one moment in which I dare to believe this dinner, and our mutual agreement on anything, is my father’s brilliance and reason for calling us all here. He’s finally had a reckoning, and this is a way to show us that we can perhaps agree on more. One small step for mankind, or at least the Brandon family. But the wave of unity is followed by thick silence and then a bristle of universal discomfort as realization slams into us. We are split into opposing agendas, and agreeing, connecting, on anything feels like a betrayal of those causes. This is a group of family and acquaintances, but one other thing supersedes all. We are enemies.