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“And the celebration helps how?”
Don leans forward, elbows on the island. “He needs to see what Renny was.”
“A complicated man who hid a child for almost thirty years?”
“That, too. But also this.” He gestures around the kitchen, then beyond it. The house. The garden. The photos. “He needs to see the life. Then maybe he’ll see that this isn’t a treasure chest for him to pillage.”
I stare at him.
“You want to overwhelm him,” I say. “You’re thinking this South End guy sees the big gay mansion, sees all the people inside it being big and gay, and then he’ll want out of here before his first sip of mimosa.”
Don smiles. “I just want to educate him.”
“Really?”
“I want to overwhelm him educationally.”
I laugh despite myself.
Don holds my gaze. “He should know what he’s walking into.”
“You mean he should feel out of place.”
“He will feel out of place because he is out of place.”
“That’s cruel.”
“Cruel, manipulative, and selfish.” Don straightens. “Yes—all those things. Let’s not pretend it isn’t.”
I shake my head. “I could kill Renny for this.”
Don leans in, his voice dropping to something almost soothing. “Invite him. Make the place beautiful. Invite every friend and enemy. Just as Renny would want it. Let the kid stand in the middle of that and decide whether he wants to reduce it to a settlement.”
Through the window over the sink, the backyard is too green. The patio furniture is arranged for guests who are not coming today. The geraniums Jessica planted sit in their pots, salmon-colored and obscenely alive.
“What if he deserves a settlement?”
Don shrugs. “Then he deserves one.”
I look back at him.
“But he doesn’t deserve your surrender before he even asks.”
That is exactly what the letter asked of me. Or maybe I am making it uglier because ugliness is easier to refuse.
“I don’t want to punish him,” I say.
“You’re protecting yourself.”
“This sounds like punishing him.”
Don’s face sharpens. “There may not be a difference.”
The room goes still.
“What if he says no?”
“Then he says no.”
