“Drinking and womanizing,” Eddie replied.
“Correct.” Marcus gave a nod and studied his pupil, while Kat skirted the edge of the room and took a seat next to Hale.
“How’s it going?” she whispered.
“Okay. I think. To be honest, I’m not really sure. Marcus is acting…scary.”
“Posture!” Marcus snapped. “Hale men do not slouch.”
“Yeah,” Kat said. “He is.”
Then it was Marianne’s turn to look Eddie up and down. She spoke to her brother. “Marcus, if I’m to be honest, I’m more concerned about his overall presence. Edward can memorize all the facts we give him, I’m certain. But Reginald had such vigor—such spirit. His manner was very distinctive.”
“True,” Marcus said.
“Let me see you walk,” Marianne told Eddie, who stood and took a few steps across the floor.
Marcus eyed Eddie from a new perspective. “The shoulders are off.”
“His hands are wrong,” Marianne said as if Eddie wasn’t even there.
“Don’t forget the limp,” Marcus told Eddie.
Kat looked at Hale. “I’ve never heard Marcus talk this much.”
“Yeah,” Hale whispered. “I’m trying to decide if I like it.”
Just then, Marcus took the ruler and struck Eddie in the stomach. “Hale men speak from the diaphragm!”
Hale nodded. “I definitely like it.”
Kat leaned her elbows on the table, and for the first time, noticed the piles that were collected there.
Old family albums lay spread across the surface. Black-and-white photos had been pulled from the pages, and Kat flipped through them one by one, staring down at the face of the same young man. Tall and strong and golden.
Standing among a tribe in Kenya, a lion at his feet. Posing with a team of dogs in the blowing snow at the top of the world. On a raft in the Amazon. Climbing K2.
Kat looked from the young man in the picture to the boy who sat beside her, and she wondered if trying to steal a more exciting life might be at least a little bit genetic.
“Here,” Marianne said. “Watch this. See the way Reginald carries himself?”
Suddenly, the lights went out and the beam of a projector was slicing through the room, splashing across a white wall, beneath high, dingy windows. Watching, Kat forgot what century—much less what year—they were in, because on the screen it was the Hamptons in summer. There were girls in tennis whites and men in seersucker suits. Slowly, the camera panned across a wide lawn, taking in the smiling faces and waving hands. There was an undeniable resemblance among them all, and Kat, who had a long line of “relatives” who didn’t share the same blood, had to remind herself that there are some families that do have the same smile—the same eyes.
Then she remembered why they seemed so familiar, and she turned to take in the boy beside her. But it was like Hale had forgotten she was there. He was staring at the flickering image, being pulled into a memory that wasn’t his own.
“That’s her,” he whispered.
“Who?” Kat asked.
He pointed. “Hazel. That’s her.”
There were three young women on the screen, but one stood apart from the group. She kept her hands intertwined, like someone who had been invited—but not born—inside the family.
Kat watched her smile and laugh. The wind blew through her hair, and it was easy for Kat to imagine the cool breeze and warm sun on the woman’s skin, but she wasn’t truly comfortable there on that sunny stretch of lawn.
“Which one is Reginald?” Kat pointed back to the screen.
“In the hat,” Hale said just as, in the video, the long-lost uncle slapped the recently departed grandmother on the butt.