Chapter 2
The smell of scorched stew reached Marielle before she’d fully woken, and she lay still for a moment listening to the sounds of the house—her father’s voice low in the front room, her mother answering, the particular cadence of a conversation that had been going on without her.
She got up and went to the kitchen.
The pot was off the fire but the damage was done. She’d pulled it too late and stirred the char up through the rest before she thought better of it, and now the whole thing had a faint burnt undertone that no amount of salt was going to fix. She stood looking at it with her arms crossed.
Her mother came in from the front room with her hair down and her shawl pulled close, moving so efficiently it were as though her body performed the morning’s tasks without instruction. She looked at the pot and then at Marielle and said nothing, which was worse than something.
Her father followed a minute later. He had the particular tiredness of a man who’d ridden through the night, moving carefully, like he was checking that everything still worked. He set his hat on the empty chair, sat down, and accepted the bowl Marielle handed him without commentary on the smell.
“There’s salt,” she said.
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
Her mother was already eating. Her father stirred the stew once and set his spoon down.
“Nash has me coming to dinner tonight,” he said.
Her mother’s spoon stopped.
“At seven,” he said. “His letter said it was important. Third time asking.” He picked up his coffee. “I figured I’d go and hear what he has to say.”
“That man has nothing to say worth hearing,” her mother said.
“Probably not. But if I don’t go, he’ll find other ways to make his point, and those ways will be less direct and more aggravating.” He drank. “If I go and hear him out, at least I know what I’m dealing with.”
“You know what you’re dealing with. You’ve known since his father died and he took the position.”
“Irine.”
“He’s a small man who inherited a large chair.”
“That’s exactly what he is,” her father said. “Which is exactly why I have to be careful about it.” He looked at Marielle. “Small men in large chairs are the most dangerous kind. They feel the size of the chair every minute they’re sitting in it.”
Marielle thought about that. “What do you think he wants?”
Her father turned his coffee cup in his hands. “He wants me out faster than I was planning to go. Or he wants something I’m not going to give him. Either way, I’ll know tonight.”
“He could make things difficult,” Marielle said. “The county contracts. The road commission. The water rights on the east pastures. He doesn’t need to come at you directly.”
Her father looked at her steadily for a moment. “When did you start paying attention to all that?”
“I read,” Marielle said. “And I listen. You told me to.”
He nodded slowly. “I did.” He picked up his coffee again. “You’re right about the shape of it. He squeezes from the sides and waits.” He drank. “Which is why I’m going to dinner instead of sending a letter back.”
He hadn’t eaten much. He’d pushed the bowl forward slightly and was looking at the window, where the morning had gone full gold and the empty clay pots on the porch rope were turning in the air.
Her mother was fifty-one and her father sixty-three—twelve years between them, which had been nothing by the time Marielle was old enough to notice it, but which she’d heard had been something once, when her father had first come calling and her grandfather hadn’t seen it that way.
“I’ll tell him no if I have to,” her father said. “And we’ll see what comes next.”
He went to sleep after breakfast. Marielle cleared the dishes and her mother went to the garden, and the house was quiet. Waiting.
***
In the afternoon she found her book and took the porch chair and read until the light changed. She was three evenings into the novel and still couldn’t decide whether the Count was who he claimed to be or the most accomplished liar in the south of France.
She heard her father’s voice through the front door before she saw him—a few words to her mother, low, the sound of something not quite easy. Then the door opened and he came out in his good brown jacket with his hat in his hand.
He looked at the book and then at her.
“Still at it?”
“He’s persistent.”
“Good for him.” He put his hat on and stood at the porch rail with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the road. The lamp behind Marielle threw his shadow long across the boards. He didn’t say what he’d come out to say.
“I want to go see Aunt Lucy,” she said.
He looked at her. “In Florida.”
“She’s been asking for two years. You keep saying soon.”
“Things have been busy.”
“They’ve been busy before. I’m not asking for your permission. I’m telling you I want to go and asking when you think you might be free to come along. If the answer is never, I’ll go alone.”
He studied her. Behind them in the house her mother was moving through the kitchen.
“We’ll talk about it when I get back,” he said.
“That’s what you said in the spring.”
“And I’m saying it again.” He came to where she sat and put his hand briefly on top of her head, the way he had when she was small, and she let him because there was nobody watching. “Don’t wait up.”
“I’ll be up. I want to know what he says.”
He went down the porch steps and out toward the road, his boots on the dry ground and then quiet when he reached the dirt. She watched him until the dark took him and even after, looking at the place where he’d been.
Her mother came to the door.
“He’ll be fine,” she said. “Nash will posture. Your father will listen and come home.”
Marielle looked at the road. “He always has,” she said. “That’s not the same as it always working out.”
Her mother was quiet for a moment.
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
She went back inside. Marielle stayed on the porch until the lamp oil ran low and the flame went thin and blue, and the moths were working at the dead glass, and then she went in to wait.