Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Tristan
“Of all the women in Westhaven, you couldn’t bring even one to your poor mother.”
“Poor is quite bold,” Nate winces with a cheeky smile, while my witty six-year-old niece works on a puzzle on the rug.
We are all seated in my parents’ main living room, arranged around a set of leather couches facing one another, with a marble table in the middle imported from a small town in Italy that Mother had set her eyes on when Nate was born.
She made my father bring it back, and because he always needed a reason to make it up to her, he obliged.
He would later tell the story of how he helped carry it inside with ten other men, white shirt rolled up to his elbows, before dictating that my mother dance barefoot on it, christening the masterpiece he had imported through endless difficulty for her sake.
Some days they hated each other, other days they had the untouched passion of newlyweds.
She would smile a lot back then, but cry too.
At night, her screams would slice through the wall, and I knew that his repetitive absence was shooting bullets at her heart.
Day after day. Was it always about business?
Was he ever faithful to her? How can a marriage survive when only one is committed to it?
“Madelyne, love, can you give me my glass, please?” Mother asks softly.
My niece, who is not allowed to call her Grandma and instead calls her Beth, rises from her pink, bright puzzle in her pastel-green sunflower dress and carefully brings the glass to my mother.
Once she has it, Mother sits back on the couch and taps Maddie’s nose with the tip of her index finger.
At least Maddie brings Mother somewhere close to happiness.
“Mad, did you show Uncle Tristan the new move you learned at gymnastics?” Nate asks, chest lifted with pride, seated beside Mother, drinking soda.
He is still wearing his suit, like me, since we both left work around six to pick up Maddie from a friend’s house after school.
The three of us drove to my parents’ house right after, since Mother had called us at lunch to arrange this dinner with the sort of urgency we had come accustomed to.
Her pills made her dizzy, often paranoid.
It would surprise us no more to get a call in the middle of the night, so that she could hear our voices.
My eyes keep roaming over the puzzle pieces scattered in every direction, all of them waiting to find their place.
My nails scrape against my palm, voices blur around me, and I angle my head to the side, seated behind Maddie and gathering every shred of patience I possess so I do not take over the damn childish game and finish it myself.
She tries a piece, turns it in every possible angle, then puts it back down.
My hand lifts halfway, about to interrupt because it was the correct one, but I catch Nate’s glare burning holes into my skull.
He already gave me a lecture years ago, when she was learning to walk.
Let her fail, let her figure things out by herself - something about confidence and all that.
So I refrain, teeth pressed together, my gaze sliding toward the greyish table where glasses and plates of canapés have been arranged in an asymmetrical display.
The lack of negative space is appalling.
If only I could find a ruler, this would be so much easier to correct.
Little fingers tap against my knee, and I snap back to reality as Maddie signs to me.
“It’s a cartwheel. Tasha taught me how to do it. Do you want to see?”
I sign back with a half smile. “Of course, Mads. Come on, show me.” I lean back as she stands, her green dress covered in yellow flowers, bare feet planted beneath white leggings, bringing a bit of normality to the nonsense of our lives, where people are discussed as economic assets, mergers as chess moves, and decisions impacting thousands of families are carried out by a handful of individuals.
Maddie performs her cartwheel, her knees folding at the end as she wipes her hands with a frown. She may have her mother’s face and Nate’s joyous nature, but her search for perfection comes from me, undoubtedly. She tries again.
“Good Lord,” Mother gasps, her hand flattening over her lips. “Madelyne, you’re going to hurt yourself. Nate, say something.”
My brother snorts. “You tell her, Mother. I think she’s doing great.”
He says it aloud first, then meets Maddie’s eyes and signs to her.
“I’m so proud of you.”
I sign too. “You did great, Mads. Keep up the good work.”
“I’ll work on it,” she signs to me. “You’ll see.
Next time, it will be perfect.” Then she begins moving around the living room the way I assume all children do, arms going in every direction, surely out of boredom, looking for an interesting object to weigh, inspect, or play with.
She sneaks behind the couch and into the kitchen while Mother and Nate discuss holidays and whether she should sell the boat that she hasn’t set foot on for the past five years.
I stand, joining my niece as she reaches for a cookie on the counter, one Mother’s cook, Ava, made especially for her.
I don’t miss the diabolical glance she does toward her father before taking her first bite.
I repress a laugh. She’ll give Nate hell in her teenage years.
“…as if we weren’t in the room, I swear,” Mother says, pulling my attention away from Maddie’s impressive ability to locate cookies wherever she goes.
I look at my mother, at her long black-dyed hair perfectly curled around her sculpted face.
She is wearing a grey couture women’s suit today, elegant, even at home.
“See?” she says, motioning toward me while speaking to Nate, who is smiling from ear to ear before glancing behind him and catching Maddie’s face covered in crumbs.
He signs to her, exaggerating every movement, “That’s enough cookies, Mad. You’ll be sick like last time.” She sticks her tongue out at him, but leaves the kitchen and returns to her puzzle.
“See what?” I ask.
“That even when you’re here, you’re not here.” Mother shakes her head, arms crossed. “I’ve talked about it with my astrologer, and he says you are experiencing dissociation because you are doing too much, honey. It isn’t good for the soul, truly.”
“Mother, I assure you, I am not dissociating. Also, I would prefer not to be a topic of conversation with your, um, astrologer, especially since I haven’t vetted him yet.”
“Brenton did,” Nate assures me. My shoulders loosen slightly. Each member of this family needs to be careful about who receives private pieces of information that could be used against us. I personally vet doctors and new staff working in our homes, but I appreciate Brenton being proactive here.
“Tristan, I…” Mother smooths the side of her hair, looking at Maddie for a second with a soft smile. “I’m just worried. We all are. It’s…”
“We?” I frown at Nate, wondering what the fuck he has discussed with my mother that could make this circus acceptable.
Nate raises his hands in innocence. “I am not we. Keep me out of this, please.” He groans, then stands and heads toward the kitchen. A second later, I hear the tap running.
“Is everything all right, Mother?” I ask, the business side of me taking over as I study her like a contract, searching for the fine print, reading between the lines for the real answer.
“Paola came for tea,” she says flatly, referring to one of my trusted associates. “She said the North deal had stirred quite a…” She pauses, pursing her lips. “…reaction.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be involved since Father…
” She cuts me off with a sharp glance, the mention of my father unbearable to her, haunting her even years later.
“I’m worried, Tristan.” She removes an imaginary speck of dust from her thigh, her long painted nails resting against a cushion.
Its texture captures my attention. Intricate details of cerulean blue and terracotta form a pattern of triangles, reminding me of a tapestry from a book I once read on the British colonisation of Malta in the early nineteenth century.
When you think about it, so much history, blood and violence harnessed by the sheer will of oppressors, stolen from innocent people only to end up reduced to a vulgar print in the middle of a North East American mansion that—
“Tristan! Christ!” Mother waves her hand in front of me, up and down, her voice rising to an unusual pitch. “That is what worries me. You’re not here.”
“I beg your pardon, Mother. I was…” I stop and lean forward, hoping to repair yet another one of my mental wanderings. “You’re right. I wasn’t listening, but I am now.”
“I’m worried…that you’re biting off more than you can chew.”
I frown. “Have I ever disappointed you?”
“Um, no. No, of course not, but…”
“Is there anything you find yourself lacking, Mother?” I lean back, sitting inside the obvious manifestation of wealth, from floor to ceiling. “I venture to guess you’ve allowed other parties to influence your judgement.” Tilting my head to the side, I catch the slight tremble of her lips.
“People talk,” she mutters.
“They certainly do.”
“Don’t worry about a thing, Mother.” Nate’s hand lands protectively on her shoulder, and she covers it with her own.
“Tristan is steering the ship like the best captain that ever existed, and I double-check that he’s not completely out of his mind.
You have nothing to worry about.” My eyes remain on her, my brother’s softness standing opposite the ice coursing through my blood, pulling my heartbeat into hiding, observing, preparing for the worst, always the worst.