Cecily's chin tips toward me now. "Penny for your thoughts," she murmurs. The low, warm lighting does pretty things to herskin tone, bringing out the tans and pinks. Her chestnut hair and brown eyes, too, as if there is a filter over her. A powerful urge to lean closer, to press my lips to her shoulder, rises in me like a tide. That damn casita smelled like smoked vanilla when I returned to it. Cecily sat out front with her puzzle while I was inside trying to pretend the scent wasn't driving me to the brink of insanity.
"Just appreciating the scenery," I tell her. "No thoughts in this head."
She squints, seeing through me. She knows I've thrown her a softball, served her up an easy chance to deliver one of her patented barbed remarks. The pad of her pointer finger presses to the square between her eyebrows. "You were cinching your eyebrows, Dominic. So don't tell me there were no thoughts in your head."
The servers arrive, setting down everyone's dinners. Different cuts of meats, roasted vegetables, cast-iron mini-crocks piled with saucy potatoes.
Ophelia requested a different preparation for her potato, and the server announces it by saying, "Your loaded baker, Mrs. Hampton."
Everyone's gaze is on the monstrosity, a pile of bacon and cheese and sour cream.
"Is there a potato under there?" Cecily jokes.
"That spud is a stud," Kerrigan says.
"Ophelia," Cecily's mom says reproachfully, when Ophelia sinks her knife into the little dish of butter. "Do you think you should be eating like that?"
Ophelia doesn't halt her motions, her hands working and her eyes downcast, as she says, "I'm dying. Who the fuck cares?"
A quiet extends around the table, nobody sure of what to say next. Ophelia has done nothing but tell the truth to a tablefull of people who haven't yet figured out how to handle what's happening.
The quiet presses on painfully for another moment, and then Cecily says, "Why does Grandma get to curse but the rest of us have to watch our mouths?"
The question, though not directed at Rainbow, implicates her. Rainbow is either very good at ignoring, or is slicing into her steak with such enthusiasm that she has not heard Cecily.
Ophelia, fork loaded with buttery, cheesy, bacon baked potato, takes a bite and offers a heartfelt middle finger around the table.
Judging by the tinkle of cutlery, the scrape of knives on plates, the family receives Ophelia's message loud and clear.
There is no more talking, only awkward silence while people eat. I feel a second, odd pang of missing the climate of dinner with my parents. At least they speak. I'm not sure this family knows how to be together.
"So, uh, what are we doing tomorrow?" Kerrigan asks, the first person to finally talk. "I don't know about you, but I'd like to sleep until noon and then get a massage."
Grandma pushes her plate away. "Quit being an idiot and look in the binder."
Hurt softens Kerrigan's features. "What?"
Grandma looks around the table. "Do any of you know what we're doing tomorrow?"
There is a collective shaking of heads.
Rainbow says, "If you bothered to look at the binder, you'd know."
Duke glares at her. "What exactly is adeath doula?"
Rainbow, her serene mask growing tight around the edges, says, "I provide emotional, spiritual, and practical support to a person nearing the end of their life."
"Sure," Duke says, in a tone that really saysgive me a break, con artist. "But what does that really mean?"
"It means I am helping your grandma plan for her passing, and I ensure a peaceful environment for her as she navigates the many emotions that accompany preparation for death."
"You sound like you're reading from a brochure." Duke slices into his steak, the knife sinking in with minimal effort. He stabs the piece with a fork, pointing it at her when he says, "Don't think I'm not looking into you. You show up when a rich woman is on her deathbed?"
There's a collective inhale around the table. Except for Glenn. He doesn't look at all surprised by this.
"You all are a bunch of assholes on a good day." Grandma eyes Duke. "But this is extreme, even for you."
Duke sighs. "I'm trying to protect your interests, Grandma."
