He turned to his computer, a go-to conversation ender, and Amelia took her cue to leave. In her bedroom, she snatched her purse and slipped into a pair of flats then collected her mom before heading to the car.
When she fired up the engine, the radio babbled “Bad Moon Rising,” the DJ’s homage to nasty weather.
Up above, powderpuff clouds yielded to the black mass marching in, the sky no longer violently blue.
FOUR
AMELIA
Little Red—her father’s name for the family sedan—rattled up the steep road toward the Dauer estate. Somewhere a bolt was loose, so itrap-a-tappedwith too much gas and whined whenever it rained. Amelia gripped the wheel as wind rocked the car.
“Momma, I don’t think Little Red is long for the world.”
“Don’t tell your father that,” her mom said and flipped down the visor mirror. She ran a comb through her auburn hair a shade darker than Amelia’s and inspected her teeth for lipstick. “He was on the phone when I went to say goodbye. Did he say why he’s not coming?”
Work was the enduring excuse, but one her dad was judicious in wielding. He’d never missed the gala despite his growing disdain for Rich’s opulence. Last year, he’d sulked in the corner while Amelia shuttled him champagne and crudité.
“Something to do with Rich. I overheard them talking.”
Talking was an understatement, one that sopped up the distress in what Amelia had overheard. At Rich’s name, her mom hummed a response and gnawed her bottom lip.
Someone once told her that married couples look alike after a while. That didn’t happen to Amelia’s parents. Instead, her mom inherited her husband’s moods, so silent gloom lived on in thepassenger seat as the car puttered through the Dauer estate’s iron gate.
Nestled against Lake Oswego, the estate was impressive enough that Charlotte Dauer named it Lake Rose Manor. Amelia found that a strange thing, naming a house. Then again, some places demanded it, palaces with heritage and bloodlines erected in stone and splendor. Lake Rose Manor wasn’t that.
It was a modernist monstrosity, boxy and sharp and lacking a soul. To Richard, a home had to be an artistic investment, so he commissioned a house that menaced over lush grounds while he dwelled in a pied-à-terre in the city. Amelia found that just as strange.
Despite its charming name, Lake Rose Manor didn’t tolerate warm flourishes, only open spaces and lonely echoes. Even the hedges were pruned in unnaturally straight lines. It’d always been at odds with itself, but tonight tried at softness with sweet touches on an austere canvas.
Peony garlands festooned square columns flanking the entryway. The blooms burst in vivid color against grey stone, and their delicate scent infused the night. A dozen tall, wrought iron candelabras lined the walkway to the manor’s entrance, though only a few still radiated hazy globes. The wind snuffed out the rest.
“You think it’s me?” Amelia asked halfway to the door. “The reason he didn’t come?”
Her mom slowed her pace. The chiffon layers of her skirt whipped around her slender frame and her hair lifted on the wind. “Of course not, my love. Why would you think that?”
Why wouldn’t she?
The letter from Harvard Law came one rainy spring morning, and the weight of the paper alone said she was in. Harvard didn’t send rejections on linen paper signed with a fountain pen. Her father had read the only word that mattered—congratulations—and exhausted his black book with the news.
“My girl got in,” he’d told anyone who’d listen.
For Amelia, cold doubt had crept in unannounced. Shesmiled big and put it to bed, but on sleepless nights, it tore her to ribbons from the inside out. When she confessed she wasn’t Cambridge-bound, he raged with words he couldn’t take back, and Amelia could’ve died on the spot but cried instead.
No one dies from rejection, though, and tears pass like rain, so she stood her ground but learned a painful lesson. Fathers only tolerated self-discovery in sons. “That’s my boy making his way,” they’d say. Trailblazer. Groundbreaker.
In daughters, it was the primrose path to ruin. Poor baby. Lost little soul.
“He probably told half these people about Harvard.” Amelia motioned to the guests up ahead dressed in their finest. “If he came, people would ask, and he’d have to tell them I dropped out.”
“It’s none of their damn business, and I’ll tell them that myself!” Her mom was soft-spoken with a gentle heart. There was fire to be found in her, though, and it burned bright with fights not yet had. She composed herself then asked, “You sure you wanna go?”
“Arizona? Of course. The job’s lined up and everything.”
The job was an editing gig at a local newspaper. The pay was decent, the hours reasonable, and she’d have the freedom to make a serious run at publishing her poetry. The work didn’t matter so much as the escape.
Some nights, Amelia dreamed banal things like flat tires or missing paperwork thwarted her plans. The moment felt a bit like that, and her mom smiled as if sorry to dredge up bad dreams.
“I meant the party.”
