20. Callum
— ? —
Callum
The terrace lunch was my mother’s idea.
That should have been warning enough.
She arrived with Genevieve on her arm - of course Genevieve, because my mother never misses an opportunity to remind me of the life she wishes I was living - and a smile that promised violence wrapped in good manners.
The staff set up under the pergola: white linens, silver flatware, a view of the water that costs more than most people’s houses.
All the trappings of civilization.
None of the actual civility.
Nichole sits across from me, her posture carefully neutral, her face giving nothing away. She’s been strange all week - quiet, distant, looking at Olivia with an expression I can’t quite read. I asked her once if something was wrong. She said she was tired. She’s been saying that a lot lately.
I don’t believe her.
“The garden is looking well,” my mother says, cutting into her salmon with surgical precision. “I see you’ve kept the hydrangeas where I planted them.”
“Was I supposed to move them?”
“You’ve moved everything else.” Her smile doesn’t waver. “New furniture. New art. New wife.” Her eyes cut to Nichole. “Such dramatic changes. One wonders what you’re trying to prove.”
“Adelaide.” Nichole’s voice is even. “How lovely to see you again.”
“Is it?” My mother takes a delicate bite. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me. We’ve barely had a chance to become acquainted.”
“I remember you perfectly.”
“I’m sure you do.” Another smile, another cut. “One always remembers the people with power over one’s circumstances.”
Genevieve laughs - a bright, tinkling sound that sets my teeth on edge. She’s barely looked at Nichole since she arrived, treating her like furniture. Something to be endured rather than engaged with.
“Callum tells me you’re doing wonderfully with Olivia,” Genevieve says, in the tone of someone praising a servant. “Children can be so difficult. You must have quite a gift.”
“She’s not difficult.” Nichole’s voice has gone flat. “She’s six.”
“Of course.” Genevieve’s smile sharpens. “Though I suppose some children are easier than others. Temperament can be so… unpredictable. Especially when you don’t know the origins.”
The silence that follows is weighted.
I watch Nichole’s face. Watch the muscle in her jaw tighten. Watch her hands go still on either side of her plate.
“Genevieve.” My voice carries a warning.
“I’m simply making conversation.” Genevieve’s eyes are wide, innocent. “We’re all family here, aren’t we? Or we will be, one way or another.”
Before I can respond, there’s a clatter.
Olivia, at her end of the table, has knocked over her water glass.
It’s nothing. It’s absolutely nothing - a six-year-old being a six-year-old, a moment of childhood clumsiness that happens at every family meal everywhere in the world. The water spreads across the white linen, soaking into the fabric, dripping onto the flagstones.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Nichole says, already moving to help. “It’s okay, accidents-”
“Well.” My mother dabs at her sleeve with her napkin, though the water is nowhere near her. “We can hardly be surprised.”
Everything goes quiet.
Olivia’s head comes up. Her eyes are bright, uncertain. She doesn’t understand the words, but she understands the tone - the dismissal in it, the contempt.
“We don’t know what she comes from, after all.” Adelaide’s voice is perfectly pleasant. Perfectly poisonous. “She doesn’t share our blood.”
The table turns to stone.
Olivia is staring at her grandmother with an expression I’ve never seen on her face - confusion and hurt and the terrible dawning understanding that she’s being found lacking by someone who should love her.
My daughter. My little girl. Being told she doesn’t count because she wasn’t born to me.
I feel something break in my chest.
Nichole stands so fast her chair tips backward, crashing onto the flagstones with a sound like a gunshot.
“Say it again.”
Her voice is quiet. Deadly. I’ve never heard her sound like this - not when Genevieve threw champagne on her, not when my mother interrogated her at dinner, not when any of the hundred small cruelties of this world tried to bring her down.
This is different.
This is a woman with her claws out.
“I beg your pardon?” My mother’s eyebrows rise.
“Say it again.” Nichole steps toward her. “To her face. And watch what I do.”
“Callum, control your-”
“That is my daughter.”
The words come out of me like something breaking. I’m on my feet too, though I don’t remember standing. The terrace has turned and everyone is looking at me, and I don’t care, I don’t care about any of them, because Olivia is staring at the floor and she looks so small, so terribly small.
“You don’t get to say blood to me.” My voice is shaking.
I’ve never let my mother see me shake. “Blood is what you have, Mother. Look at it. Look at this table. Look at what blood has given you - a son who can barely stand to be in the same room with you, a name you’ve spent forty years polishing until there’s nothing underneath it. ”
“Callum-”
“I chose her.” I’m pointing at Olivia, at my daughter, at the only good thing I’ve ever done. “I walked into a room and I chose her. She’s the only thing in my life that isn’t rotten. And you will not put your mouth on her again.”
The silence rings.
My mother rises. Smooths her napkin. Places it carefully on the table. She’s perfectly calm, which is how I know I’ve just done something irreversible.
“You’ll regret speaking to me like that,” she says. “You have no idea what I’ve given you.”
She turns to leave.
Genevieve scrambles up to follow, her face a study in barely concealed excitement - gossip this good will keep her fed for weeks.
At the edge of the terrace, my mother stops. She turns back, not to me, but to Nichole. Steps close to her. Speaks low, so quiet I can barely hear.
“And you.” Her voice is silk over steel. “Whatever you think you’ve found in this family, girl - I put it there.”
Nichole’s face goes white.
“And I can take it back.”
Then she’s gone. Heels clicking across the flagstones, Genevieve trailing behind her, the air still vibrating with everything that was said and everything that wasn’t.
I go to Olivia.
She’s still sitting in her chair, staring at the water stain spreading across the tablecloth, her hands twisted together in her lap. When I crouch down beside her, she doesn’t look up.
“Hey,” I say softly. “Hey, look at me.”
She shakes her head.
“Olivia. Please.”
Slowly, she lifts her eyes. They’re swimming with tears she’s trying not to let fall.
“Am I not blood?” Her voice is barely a whisper. “What does that mean? Am I wrong?”
The question shatters me.
I gather her up into my arms, pulling her off the chair and against my chest, and I hold her so tight I’m probably crushing her and I don’t care.
“You are everything,” I tell her. “You are the best thing. You are mine, do you hear me? You’re mine and nothing she says changes that. Nothing anyone says, ever.”
She cries into my shoulder.
Small, hitching sobs that shake her whole body.
I look up and find Nichole still standing where my mother left her. Her face is still white. She’s staring at nothing, her lips moving slightly, like she’s repeating something to herself.
Whatever you think you’ve found in this family, I put it there.
Our eyes meet.
And I see it - the fear in her face. But it’s not fear of my mother. It’s something else. Something I don’t understand, something she’s holding behind her eyes like a secret she can’t let go of.
“Nichole?”
She blinks. Comes back from wherever she went.
“I’m fine,” she says.
She’s not fine.
None of us are fine.
But Olivia is crying in my arms, and the table is still covered in spilled water and abandoned food, and whatever is wrong with Nichole will have to wait.
Everything will have to wait.