I inhaled a shaky breath. “Only one way to know for sure.”
***
Dinner that night was Belinda’s pot roast, my favorite. But my food grew cold as my stomach twisted in knots at the thought of confronting my dad.
My mother sat at one end of our long dining table, my father at the other. She’d hardly touched her food either; since Grant died, she’d become sticklike and pale, her thin fingers always wrapped around the stem of a wine glass. Jack sat across from me, shoveling his food so he could be excused as fast as possible. The entire room was loud with silence and thick with the tension of a broken family going through the motions.
Not that my dad seemed to notice any of it. He ate leisurely, sipped his wine, and complimented Belinda on the meal when she brought in a basket of rolls, fresh from the oven.
“Apologies for the delay,” she said, setting the fragrant basket down. “I got too busy with the roast.”
I reached for a roll, and my mother cleared her throat and gave me a warning glance. My hand froze in midair and then I snatched it back. Belinda hurried out, mumbling something about turning off the oven.
“Jesus, Mom,” Jack snarled. He took two rolls from the basket and tossed one across the table to me.
“Jack,” Dad said. “That is hardly appropriate table manners.”
“She should be allowed to eat her fucking dinner,” my brother snapped.
“That language is inappropriate, as well,” Dad said in that deadly calm tone of his. “One more outburst and you start losing privileges. Such as participating in any upcoming social events.”
There were a ton of back-to-school activities coming up, includingthe annual bonfire party on the beach down at Castle Hill Lighthouse this weekend, a party that no one at school wanted to miss. Not even Jack.
“I’m nineteen,” Jack said. “You can’t tell me where I can and can’t go.”
“So long as you’re living under my roof, eating my food, and sleeping in the bed I provide for you, I certainly can.”
Jack snapped his mouth shut and glowered at me and my untouched dinner roll. Mom went back to her wine. The silence grew unbearable, as it usually did. I felt its weight on my shoulders. If I didn’t say something, no one would.
“I’ve hired a tutor to help me with math,” I said. “We had our first meeting today.”
“That’s wise,” Dad intoned, “considering how you struggle with the subject.”
“But I’ll need money for it. He’s thirty dollars an hour.”
He frowned. “That seems high.”
“Yes, but he’s the best. A genius,” I said, hearing the pride in my voice, as if I needed to defend Xander.
You don’t need to defend him; you need to protect him.
“This tutor is a student? Do I know him?”
“No. He’s new.”
“I’ll need his name and address if you plan to be at his home,” Dad said, dabbing butter onto his dinner roll.
“We’ll study at school.”
My father peered down at me over his glasses. “His name, Emery.”
It was a command, not a question. And ridiculous anyway, considering he never seemed to care where I went or what I did on my dates with Tucker.
“Xander Ford,” I said, and watched my dad’s face for a spark of recognition or any hint that he’d seen the name before on an envelope—many envelopes—years ago. But his expression remained impassive.
“Ford,” Dad mused. “Do I know his parents? Are they members?”
Are they members?was code forAre they one of us?If they didn’t own a yacht or play tennis at the Castle Hill Country Club with its $50,000 annual membership fee, they weren’t worth knowing.
