I could imagine a world where the stars had aligned differently and grandmother hadn’t tainted or taunted the family with the inheritance, and where I actually sort of liked my family, as a whole. A world where the general nastiness hadn’t bubbled up and out and twisted them. In this theoretical world where I could see my Uncle Paul or Callan or any of the others at Christmas and exchange presents, I suspected I’d still have a deep seated dislike for Aunt Steph.
“I was taking a moment,” Rose said.
“Maybe you should ‘take a moment’ later, when you don’t have the rest of the family in the other room, waiting for you,” Aunt Steph said. I could imagine she thought she sounded sweet, saying it.
Maybe you should go fuck yourself, I thought. Rose met my eyes, and I could tell we were on the same wavelength there.
“Of course,” Rose said, turning. She stood straighter, and then she smiled. I would never have been able to do that. She tapped the counter in front of me, and her inflection was slightly different as she said, “Have to think of the others. I’ll have to give you the benefit of a doubt.”
“Good,” Aunt Steph said. She smiled, and it was a smug, too-pleased-with-herself sort of smile. If I hadn’t already known what they were doing, that smile would have given the show away.
But Rose’s words there hadn’t been for Aunt Steph’s benefit. They’d been for mine.
She was going ahead with this. Damn it.
She held out a hand, and Evan flew to her outstretched finger.
“Dirty,” Aunt Steph commented, frowning.
“I should be able to flip the bird to people,” Evan said. My head snapped around to look at him. He continued, “It’s called flipping the bird, so why can’t a flippin’ bird give someone the finger?”
My eye moved over everyone in the living room. Evan had been heard only by Rose and I, as far as I could tell. The family had made deals with Sandra, Johannes or Duncan, but there was nothing to suggest they’d been clued into the real goings-on.
Rose was silent, ignoring Aunt Steph’s comment as she headed back into the living room to rejoin everyone.
I remembered her words. ‘Have to think of the others. I’ll have to give you the benefit of a doubt.’
Rose’s plan, apparently, was to hope that Sandra, Johannes, Duncan, Alister, and all the rest backed off and let her back before the dead man’s switch kicked in. Which meant that the rest of us were left with Hillsglade House to look after.
That meant Evan, Alexis, Ty, Tiff and I all needed to survive, and we had to do it while the defenses of the property were a fraction of what they had been. If Johannes and Sandra were cooperating enough to arrive at Alister’s side, and Sandra wasn’t leaping at the chance to take Alister out of the running, there was some kind of deal in place. That meant all of our enemies were probably gathered in a loose coalition against us.
Putting aside grievances to deal with Rose and her dead man’s switch, and quite possibly Molly as well.
Rose knew it, but she still wanted us to stick it out.
Fuck.
I couldn’t let it come to that, if I had any chance to avoid it.
When I returned to the living room, I could see the others gathered. Uncle Paul had one armchair, Aunt Jessica stood behind him, with one hand on Roxanne’s shoulder, another on James’. Very protective. Mom and dad –Rose’s mom and dad- were sitting on the couch, taking up more space than they needed, with Ivy as their ready excuse.
Aunt Steph nudged Ellie, and Ellie reluctantly vacated the chair for her mother, before standing next to Peter. Kathryn shifted a bit away – the oldest of the cousins, mother to the first of grandmother’s great-grandkids, she didn’t have her kid with her. I wondered how that worked.
“We’re worried about you, Rose,” Rose’s dad said. “We talked earlier, I tried to make that clear. Your mother and I have talked it over. I want you to know that whatever comes next, we didn’t want this. We agree it’s probably in your best interests, but we didn’t want it to play out this way, not when we were just starting to reconnect.”
“Da,” Ivy piped up. He reached down to brush her hair with his fingers, tidying the part in her wisp-thin blonde hair.
“You can’t have it both ways, dad,” Rose said, raising Evan up to her shoulder. “You don’t get to trash my clothes and leave me without anything-”
“That was an accident,” her mother said.
“-And you don’t get to meet with all the others and discuss strategies for getting me out of the house or selling the house out from under me and then turn around and pretend to be my ally in all this.”
I saw Ellie smirking, almost as if she agreed. Then again, Ellie, the third oldest of the cousins, was probably the least proficient when it came to the finesse side of things. She probably thought all the cloak and dagger stuff was bullshit.
“I’m your family,” Rose’s dad said.
“You’re my relative. You’re far from being my family,” Rose said. “Unless you want to tell me what the rest of these guys have planned?”
“We discussed that,” he said. “While we don’t agree with the timing, we think everyone will be happier in the long run, the way things are. Please cooperate. If you just… go…”
He trailed off. Rose had one hand to her face, and was laughing softly, laughing only to herself.
When she moved her hand, the look in her eyes was alien. Cold.
Her dad lost his train of thought.
“I grew up with you, dad. I have a rule when it comes to you, you know? It makes dealing with you easy.”
“A rule?” he asked.
“It’s really simple. Whenever you say something, I flip it around. You say you’re doing this to make everyone happy? No. What you really mean is you’re doing this to make you happy. You want us to be a family again? I hear that, and I interpret it as ‘you aren’t my daughter’.”
“That’s unfair,” Rose’s mother cut in.
“Paranoid, even,” Peter chimed in. He just couldn’t resist dropping that barb.
“This is exactly why we’re worried about you,” Rose’s dad said. “You’re not of sound mind, you’re not making good decisions for the family or the inheritance.”
“Wait,” Rose said, raising a finger, “I got this. Give me a second. ‘This is exactly why we’re trumping up charges against you. You’re just a little too clever right now, and we don’t want you outplaying us in terms of the inheritance.’ How’s that?”
“That isn’t cute, funny, or productive,” Aunt Steph said.
“It’s a little funny,” Peter said. His mother shot him a look.
“What’s that even about? Trumping up-” Uncle Paul started. “What in the hell are you talking about?”