“You’re building a life for yourself. Let me help in this way.”
“But you don’t have to.”
He smiles softly. “I like the woman you brought home today.”
I sigh. “Dad.”
“Go rescue her,” Dad jokes. Just like that, he’s done with this life altering conversation.
Nothing else can be said because a wave of men show up in the kitchen. They’re a mixture of my dad’s work and church friends.
I leave the kitchen before I get dragged into their conversations. I’m searching for Isolde when I spot Rae and Luis.
“They’re together right?” Rae asks.
Luis’s got a beer in his hand. “I mean, I don’t think they’ve put any labels on it. The eye fucking is getting insane, though. No, like, you should see them at the gym. Every guy there knows not to get too?—”
My cousins jump, but not because they see me.
Isolde appears in the hallway, and they quickly stop whispering.
Photos hang along the walls. Some were placed by my mother. The rest showed up after my aunts stepped in and ensured the house never went too far gone when it came to interior design.
“Who’s that?” Isolde asks, pointing at a photo.
I know exactly who it is by the way Rae and Luis share a panicked look.
“That’s Tris’s mum, right?” Isolde points to another photo. “But I’ve seen this girl in other photos, but I don’t know who she is.”
When she notices their silence, she blushes.
“Sorry, is that too nosy?” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“No,” Rae rushes to says.
“It’s just. . .” Luis blusters.
I step out of the shadows. “It’s Mariah. My old high school sweetheart.”
“Oh.” Isolde nods, showing no signs of discomfort. “She’s really pretty.”
Rae visibly gulps, and Luis’s eyes are wide.
“She died when she was twenty.” I’m completely calm as I say it. After all these years, it’s just one more fact to state.
Isolde typically looks serious. Now is no different. Her blue eyes are darker in the dim light, the depths all knowing.
“I’m real sorry about that,” is all she says.
Rae and Luis extract themselves, walking backward down the hall. At my pointed glare, they hurry up.
“Sorry,” Isolde says, and this time it’s for prying. “I didn’t mean to.”
“She’s in a lot of photos,” I say, shrugging. “I’d known her since kindergarten. She was one of us, you know.”
Isolde nods.
“We didn’t start dating until high school.” The photo on the wall is from our graduation. “She went off to college. I went to work for the Irish.”
