Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 83430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“I am too.” I hug her again. “But stop acting like I died or something. I only moved to a different house.”
“That’s practically forever away.”
She greets Brenden kindly enough and brings us inside. Sam and Davit are waiting in the billiards room, but Brenden gets intercepted by Papa. “Time to work,” my husband says in my ear, kissing my cheek. “See you soon.” He gets pulled away and I’m left with my siblings.
“I’m fine,” Davit says, waving me away when I try to hug him and flutter around him. When I heard a burglar choked him out, I nearly lost my mind. Poor little Davit, he’s so sensitive, it must’ve been terrible.
“He’s not fine,” Sam says as he strikes a shot at the pool table. The balls clack and he misses. “He’s pretending, but at night he wakes up screaming in terror.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s true. He comes into my bed and snuggles against me like a little child. I’m so kind that I hold him until he falls asleep.”
“I’m fine,” Davit insists again, ignoring Sam. “All that’s bothering me now is why it even happened.” Davit’s gaze drifts to the bar where apparently there’s a hidden safe, found empty.
“You know why.” Annie’s dismissive as she opens champagne and pours me some.
“We all know why,” Sam agrees, taking the bottle and swigging straight from the neck. Annie makes a disgusted face.
“You really think it was for something Papa had hidden?” I wring my hands together, not sure what to think. “I mean, all the years we’ve been here, nobody’s ever broke in like that.”
“That we know of.” Sam’s tone takes a dark cast. “You think Papa tells us anything?”
“You’ve got this place wired up.” Davit takes a shot and sinks a ball with a triumphant grin. “Bet you were pretty pissed about it, huh?”
Sam glares at his brother. The two of them are almost opposites. Sam pretends like he doesn’t care, like life’s one big joke, while Davit can’t help but care about everything.
“It shouldn’t have happened.” Sam’s blunt tone makes Annie change the subject diplomatically.
“Let’s talk about our dear sister’s return and how she’s faring with her husband, shall we?”
“Can we not?”
“No, we shall,” Davit agrees. “Tell us everything.”
What follows is a mortifying and annoying grilling from siblings who I think should be a little less willing to ask such personal questions. We’re probably too close, now that I think about it. I’m saved only when Mother drifts into the room, willowy under her light blue dress, a martini in a tiny bulb glass perched between her fingers.
“Meal, children.” Her glassy eyes slide over me like I’m furniture. Araxie Sarkissian is almost never present, even when she’s in the room. When I was little I thought she was a fairy, her mind still trapped in the Fae Realm. Now I know she takes a lot of pills and loves to drink. She wasn’t a bad mom, but she sure as hell wasn’t a good one.
Brenden and Papa are already at the table talking shop. Papa’s throwing questions at Brenden who answers as plainly as he can, shooting me looks like he’s about to lose his mind, but he’s patient about the whole thing. Once we’re together, Sam joins in on the security talk, to Papa’s dismay and frustration, and takes over it altogether.
“You really think the hardware doesn’t matter?” Sam sounds aghast like it’s genuine blasphemy.
“Real security is about two things: identification and response time. The hardware triggers the event, but the response time is everything.”
“I can see that,” Papa booms, trying to assert himself.
Sam waves his glass. “But you can’t respond if you don’t know the thief’s there, as we learned already.”
“A proper thief typically can’t be stopped by much.”
“You might be a bit biased,” I say, bored by the conversation already.
Sam nags at Brenden some more, but dinner gets served and Annie manages to steer the conversation to more acceptable places, like gossip about friends and former classmates.
Through it all, Brenden never falters. He shows no exhaustion, no hint of being bored, no suggestion that Papa’s badgering bothers him in the slightest. He even makes Davit laugh a few times which warms me to him. Mother’s barely a body, picking at her plate, but I didn’t expect anything else, and as the meal wears on I start to feel something it takes a few minutes to identify.
I’m happy. And I’m content.
I expected bringing Brenden around my family would be nothing but stressful. Instead, he’s navigating the experience with grace and is turning what’s usually a quiet, tense meal into something not so terrible.
“Dessert time,” Annie announces happily, clapping her hands together as the house staff clears our plates. “But first, a post-dinner drink. Shall we retire to the study?”
Nobody argues with a drink. As the group meanders out, I take Brenden’s hand and lead him down a side hall. He follows without complaint, and I turn on him once we’re alone in a quiet, empty sitting room.