He narrowed his eyes at me for a moment before he answered. “I went with him to check on the cabins, to see if any damage had been done. Everything checked out okay. Just some downed branches and a bunch of leaves.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” he said.
Our eyes locked; he broke first.
“You have an advantage. Your eyes are inhuman—angel eyes. And any man that claims he can stare down his wife or lover doesn’t love her. He’s a fucking liar and I’ll call bullshit to his face.”
“Got that off a rock, did you?”
He pushed my head under the water, and I came up with a face full of soap. I had to turn the faucet on to wash it clean.
“Tell me, Brando,” I spluttered. “I know something’s going on.”
It wasn’t tension directly between him and my father. It was closer to tension around something one of them was attempting to hide from the other.
Whenever the sheriff was around, the feeling increased. My father would take the sheriff and his nephews to the side, and however he did it, he would get them to lay off for a little while. Brando refused to comment on it, which made me think that he suspected something but didn’t know what it was yet.
Brando walked back to the counter, eyeing the nightgown with distaste, and resumed his earlier position—arms and legs crossed. “I want you to talk to him,” he said.
“Somethingisgoing on!” I said, almost a sense of triumph in my voice.
“Hold on there, Agatha Christie,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s been acting different.Matiasked me to talk to him, but he was distracted today, almost hot-headed at times. Even if I could’ve come right out and asked him, he wasn’t in the mood for campfire songs.”
“With you?” That surprised me.
“No, in general. He has a vocabulary that would rival a sailor’s. He put it to good use today. Over some downed branches.”
“Does this have anything to do with the sheriff?” I asked.
Brando shrugged. I wanted to call him on it but decided not to.
“Whatdoesit have to do with then?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” he said. “Just ask him if he’s been feeling okay.”
“Oh,” I said, and played with lingering small bubbles. Most of them had melted into the water, but a few floated atop the surface, catching the light and forming a rainbow band of colors.
“Scarlett.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re tired, baby.”
“Yes,” I said, and the admission seemed to take fifty years off my shoulders, yet I was still weighed down by the gravity of our life. “I am. I need to sleep for a while.”
“In my arms.”
It wasn’t a question.
Chapter Twenty
Scarlett
If the signs were there, I’d missed them. Or it happened so suddenly that I didn’t have time to notice. My father was acting strange. He’d blow up at the smallest inconveniences, had been drinking and smoking more, and it was a rare sight when we caught him smiling.
I had tried talking to him, but he waved me off with insincere “I’m fine, darling, just fine” lines. Still, he had insisted that what I wanted for my birthday—a small get-together with our closest family and friends—wouldn’t do.
