The answer came swiftly and turned her empty stomach: because her father had assured him she would.
After cleaning herself up, she’d slipped out of the bathroom only to have her arm practically yanked out of its socket as Priscilla pulled her into the adjacent coat closet and quietly closed the door, leaving the sisters alone together in the dark.
“Did he do it?”
Margaret raised her foot, made her best approximation of where Priscilla’s bare foot would be, and slammed her heel down as hard as possible.
“Ouch, Meggie! What the fuck?”
“You knew? God, isn’t there anyone in this family willing to let me live my own goddamned life?”
“Shit, that hurt.”
“Traitor! How could you let me walk into that without a warning?”
“Because Shane was standing right behind you,” her sister whined. “Why do you think I was speaking French? I was trying to figure out if he understood. He understood enough to know what I was saying about Xavier, so I couldn’t tell you.”
“Instead you jumped ship like you always do and let me walk into the lion’s den alone. Great, Pris. Thanks.”
“I came back, didn’t I?”
Some keys rustled in the darkness, and Margaret felt the cold metal slip against her arm.
“Take my car. Get out of here.”
The darkness hid her sour expression. “Oh. Just like that. Just . . . leave.”
“You got a better idea?”
Run away. Just run away. Honestly? It sounded like heaven. And why shouldn’t she? Why should she be pleasant, dutiful Margaret when her father and un-boyfriend were trying to bulldoze her into a loveless marriage for the sake of business?
She reached for the keys. “What are you driving these days?”
“BMW, clean diesel.”
“Of course you are.”
“Just go, will you? I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll try to fix things.”
The problem with this plan? Generally Pris didn’t fix things. Her forte was making a bigger mess.
“How?”
“Do you love Shane?”
“No.”
“Do you want him?”
“No.”
“Not even a little tiny bit?”
“Not even if he was the last man on earth,” said Margaret as a pair of green eyes flashed in her head, lighting up the darkness of her present situation.
“Then why do you care?” asked Priscilla in the most unexpectedly level voice Margaret had ever heard her use.
“I don’t. But Daddy . . .”
“. . . is going to be pissed for a while. You foiled his plan.”
“He treats me like some eighteenth-century chattel. It’s humiliating.”
“And yet you care.”
“Pris—”
“You don’t have to explain it to me, Meggie. I’m his daughter too.”
For a moment, Margaret felt puzzled. Because Priscilla had always been such an oddball free spirit, Margaret hadn’t thought much about her feelings when it came to their father. Pris was wild and tattooed, got caught making out with boys at an early age, and was a constant, consistent source of disappointment to their buttoned-up parents. And yet for all her freewheeling ways, their father’s lack of affection hurt Priscilla too.
“Okay, I’ll go.”
“Good,” said Pris, pushing Margaret toward the door. “Then what are you still doing in the closet with me?”
“I miss Mother,” said Margaret softly, a sentiment the sisters rarely shared with one another.
“She wouldn’t have gotten in the way tonight,” said Priscilla in a hard voice. “She wouldn’t have stepped in. She would have let it happen, and she would have made you feel bad for refusing. He always got his way. Always. No matter what.”
Margaret leaned back and grabbed her sister’s cheeks, pulling her close so that she could rub Priscilla’s nose with hers. “I love you, Pris.”
Priscilla’s voice softened appreciably. “I love you too. Now, get out of here.”
Margaret exited the closet stealthily, slipping her shoes off and walking tiptoe across the front hallway.
“Oh God,” she moaned, flipping over in her bed and burying her face in her pillow. She should have just kept walking. She should have tiptoed out the front door, started up Priscilla’s save-the-earth car, and escaped to The Five Sisters. But no. Stupidly, she’d paused by her father’s cracked-open office door and heard the words she wished she hadn’t.
“I never wanted five girls. I wanted, well . . .,” her father said, the splash of Scotch filling a glass competing with his humorless chuckle. “I wanted a boy. A son. Someone like you.”
“Yes, sir,” she heard Shane mumble as two more ice cubes landed in a tumbler.
“Instead I got them. A mouthy rebel, a shrinking violet, an airhead, a hippie, and a baby. Five girls.” He paused. “Ellen miscarried a boy, you know. Between Alice and Margaret. Margaret should have been a boy. My son. Instead . . .”