“How are you enjoying your new car, Jane?” Grayson asked, throwing the first volley.
“Considering I didn’t ask for it, didn’t want that kind and couldn’t drive a stick shift…I like it just fine.”
“Would you like a different make? That can be arranged.” This from my father. He was looking over my shoulder, at Stick, giving him a “what a fuck-up” look.
“Actually, turns out it was the perfect car for me,” I said. “I just never asked for one.”
“What kid doesn’t want a new car?” my father asked.
“The kind of kid who wants to bargain for something else,” Grayson said.
There was a small snort from Stick, which he quickly covered with a fake cough. “If you don’t need anything else,Caro,” he said, and I imagined him staring down my father as he said Caro’s name, “then I’m going to hit the garage.”
“Why don’t you stay?” Grayson said. “You might have a good understanding of what Caro would feel up to.” He waved at the chair next to me, and Stick, after receiving a nod from Caro, sat next to me.
Now it looked like three against my father, with Grayson being the referee.
“You don’t think I’m the best person to say what I’m able to do?” Caro asked Grayson with an iciness in her voice.
“No,” he said, then looked back at this laptop.
I imagined this scene, or something similar, had played out around tables with these three for years before I was born, and for quite a few after. Even after the divorce.
Minus the dying of cancer, though that had been present before.
And certainly minus the bastard daughter sitting in.
Caro and Grayson would plan and plot, sometimes in sync, many times not. And my father would sit and listen…and let them try to make him king.
My mother’s voice came back to me:“The only reason he was ever with her—the only reason he’sstillwith her—was because she was almost as good a political mind as that prick Grayson Spaulding. He should have just hired her, not married her. But no, he had to hedge every bet and marry her for her father’s connections.”
She’d had lots to say about my father choosing to stay with Caro even after I was born. Stuff you probably shouldn’t share with a kid, but that never stopped my mother. To her, Joe staying with Caro and not wanting to be with my mother had always been about image.
“We just don’t want you to overdo it, Caro,” my father said.
“You just don’t want me to keel over when you happen to be standing next to me.”
“She totally emasculated him, Jaybird. No wonder he went looking. No wonder he fell so fast and hard for me. That’s the key, Jaybird, you have tosoothethem. Even if they’re being total dipshits, you have to pretend everything they say and do is golden.That’s how you keep a man.”
Never mind that Caro Stratton kept her man for twenty years before my mother came along, and my mother had never managed to keep any man for more than a year or two, including my father. Especially my father.
“Caro, that’s not true, I—”
“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I find that dying gives me a sense of urgency I’d rather not ignore.”
“Okay, let’s not pussyfoot around,” Grayson said.
They’d been pussyfooting thus far? I couldn’t wait to see how they acted when the gloves came off.
Except I could. I didn’t really want to see these people interacting with each other as they normally did.
I’d kind of grown a grudging respect for Grayson Spaulding after Betsy’s wedding. My father, though he hadn’t earned my respect, was someone I was able to deal with.
And even after years of hearing my mother bad-mouth her, and having no illusions that she could be an ice queen at times, I’d grown to like Caro while watching her sift through the photos of her children.
I’d always respected her, been in awe of her, but now I liked the woman herself.
“Does the public knowing that I’m dying help you or hurt you?” Caro said. She directed this more to Grayson.
