Chapter 11: The Hale Girl

“Breathe, Red, she can smell fear, it is her only real talent,” Kade said, as the car stopped in front of a house with white pillars and a fountain.

“It looks like a bank,” I said, looking up at the lit windows.

“It is worse than a bank, a bank at least lets you leave,” Kade said, and he came around and opened my door.

“Are you sure about this dress, Zola picked it, she said green makes me look expensive,” I said, smoothing the front of it with sweaty hands.

“You look like a woman who owns the building, and that is exactly what she will hate,” Kade said.

“Kade, I am wearing a color, my whole body is nervous,” I said.

He laughed, and then he tucked my hand into the crook of his arm and held it there. “Rule two, public affection, from the front door on.”

“I thought rule two started at the party,” I said.

“I am an early adopter,” Kade said.

Odile Voss waited in the hallway under a chandelier, tall and slim in a cream silk dress, with silver hair pinned up and a smile that looked painted on.

“Kade, darling, you look thin,” she said, kissing the air next to his cheeks.

“Mother, this is Mina,” Kade said.

Odile’s eyes started at my shoes and traveled slowly up, and they stopped at my stomach, and then at my hips.

“So this is the Hale girl, you are, how shall I say it, generous in person, the newspaper photos did not do you justice,” Odile said.

“Thank you for having me, madam, you have a beautiful home,” I said, though my hand had gone tight around Kade’s arm.

“It was my husband’s home, he left it to me and took everything else, come in, come in, we eat at seven sharp,” Odile said, and she turned and walked away, and her heels clicked like a clock.

The dining table was long enough for twenty people and set for four, with silver candlesticks and plates so thin I was afraid to touch them.

In the chair at the far end sat a tiny woman in a purple shawl with a cane across her knees, and she was staring at me as if I were the main course.

“Nana Rose, this is Mina, Mina, my grandmother,” Kade said.

“Come closer, child, I cannot see you from here, and I will not wear the glasses, they make me look old,” Nana Rose said.

I stepped up to her chair, and she looked at me for a long time, and then she reached out a hand like a small bird’s claw and pinched my arm.

“Nana!” Kade said.

“Good, she has meat on her, I do not trust a woman who cannot survive a winter, last year I fainted on a skinny girl at church,” Nana Rose said.

“You fainted on someone?” I asked.

“On the pastor’s daughter, she looked like a broom, I woke up and she was sorry, I was not,” Nana Rose said, and I laughed before I could stop myself.

“Sit, sit, the girl has a good laugh, you will do,” Nana Rose said, patting the chair beside her.

Odile slid into her seat with her mouth in a thin line. “Mother, you cannot approve of a girl before she has eaten the soup.”

“I approved of you, Odile, and look how that turned out,” Nana Rose said, and Kade coughed into his napkin.

The soup came, and nobody spoke except the spoons, until Odile set hers down very softly.

“Tell me, Mina, how many weeks along are you?” Odile asked.

“About seven weeks,” I said.

“Seven weeks, and already in a green dress, brave, I would have waited for the wedding, but young people today have no patience, and no discretion,” Odile said.

“Mother,” Kade said.

“I am only asking, darling, what does this girl bring besides a baby and a bad headline?” Odile asked.

“That is enough, Mother, she is carrying your grandchild,” Kade said.

“I carried you for nine months, darling, and I do not recall a parade,” Odile said.

“No, you only recall everything I ever did wrong,” Kade said.

I put down my spoon, and my face burned, and for one long second I was eight years old again on the stairs with a broken arm.

Then I thought of my father’s closed door, and of a hotel room full of city lights, and of a man who told me I never had to shrink.

“I bring a company that makes forty million dollars a year, madam, I bring a board that listens when I speak, and a very loud best friend,” I said.

Nana Rose made a small noise like a cat purring.

“Is that so?” Odile said.

“I also bring a child who will be a Voss, and I do not need to be insulted at your table to know what I am worth, because I have been insulted at much better tables, by people with less manners than you,” I said, and my voice shook only a little.

The silence stretched, and somewhere a clock ticked, and Kade slid his hand under the table and squeezed mine hard.

“I like her,” Nana Rose said loudly. “She has a spine, you had one once, Odile, before you traded it for pearls.”

Odile’s smile cracked, just for a moment, and something flashed behind it, cold and old.

“Very well, you have a tongue, I will not say it is unattractive, so let us be practical, Kade has until the end of the year to marry, or his seat on the Voss board is mine to give away, you know that,” Odile said.

“I know, Mother, that is why Mina and I are getting married, next week,” Kade said.

“Next week,” Odile said, and for the first time her face was truly still. “How convenient, a Hale heiress, in my own family, at my own table.”

“Convenient for what?” I asked.

“For everyone, darling, for everyone,” Odile said, and she raised her wine glass, and her eyes were on me, and they were not smiling at all.

After the main course, I excused myself and walked into the hallway because I could not breathe, and I stood in front of a wall of framed photographs and touched the glass of one with shaking fingers.

A small boy with Kade’s crooked smile sat on a man’s shoulders, and the man was laughing, tall and handsome, with a hand wrapped around the boy’s ankle like he would never let go.

“He was nine in that picture, the summer before it all fell apart,” Odile said behind me.

I turned, and she stood in the doorway with her wine glass, soft as smoke.

“Madam, I did not mean to pry,” I said.

“You are not prying, darling, you are looking at my husband, he was a charming man, he stood in this hallway and promised me the world, and he kept that promise for exactly ten years,” Odile said.

“Kade told me he left,” I said quietly.

“Kade tells everyone he left, it is a cleaner story, men do not leave like that without a reason, and a reason always has a name,” Odile said.

“Whose name?” I asked, and the hair rose on my arms.

Odile stepped closer, close enough that I could smell her perfume, jasmine with something sour underneath.

“Ask your father, Mina, ask him where he was and what he signed in the spring that Kade turned nine, ask him why my husband packed one bag,” Odile said, so softly that it sounded like a kindness.

“My father had nothing to do with it,” I said.

“Of course not, darling, welcome to the family,” Odile said, and she patted my cheek, and she walked back toward the dining room without another word.

I stood there in the quiet hall with my hand on my stomach, and I thought of a white handkerchief with a red stain, and of a locked drawer, and of a man who would rather die than let anyone see him weak.

On the table beneath the photograph lay a yellowed newspaper clipping, folded once, and I picked it up with cold fingers and opened it, and my father’s face stared out from the front page, and one word in the headline had been circled in red ink: ruined.