like, ‘Just let them run wild, they’ll turn out fine in the end’—which was great when it was us, but it’s not as much fun from the other side.”
I didn’t point out that that part of the problem, at least, was likely to take care of itself fairly soon. I wasn’t interested in discussing Zach’s issues. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw your dad,” I said.
I realized almost instantly, from the surprised silence, that I had put my foot in it. I rummaged frantically in my mind for whatever I was missing; all I could come up with was calling Uncle Phil when I got completely hammered and lost my wallet at some teenage disco and Hugo wasn’t answering his phone, the wry look on his face in the car as he advised me to be very quiet on my way into my house, but obviously I had seen him since then—
“But they were here at Christmas,” Susanna said. “Remember? They gave Zach that dagger thing, and he stabbed the sofa?”
“Oh,” I said. The sharp, intent way she was looking at me, like something was just dawning on her, made my gut clench. “Duh. I guess my mind was on other stuff at Christmas, I had like a lot on at work? and all the Christmases kind of blur together, right, specially since a lot’s happened—” Leon snorted, just loudly enough to be obvious. The sofa-stabbing didn’t sound like the kind of thing that would blur easily.
“You,” Susanna said, with finality, “are drunk.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I really am.” I was so grateful to her for the out, so pierced by her infinitely kind and innocent world where nothing worse than a few mimosas could possibly be wrong with anyone’s mind, I could have cried.
“Give me that,” Leon said, reaching for the bottle. “You’ve had plenty.” The arch of his eyebrow at me said What with the other stuff.
“I have, yeah. And I’m planning to have plenty more.”
“Melissa’s such a lucky girl. Is she staying here too?”
I shrugged. My heart was hammering: sooner or later I was going to really fuck up, say or do something so moronic that no amount of naïveté could gloss over it, I should never have come here— “For a few days, yeah.”
“Doesn’t want you out of her sight?”
“What can I say, dude. She likes my company. Your guy didn’t make it, no?”
“Carsten’s got a job. He can’t just take off whenever he feels like it.”
“Ooo. He sounds important.”
“I wish this was over,” Leon said, suddenly and fiercely. “I know that’s awful, but I do. What are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to pretend it’s not happening? There should be a manual.”
“I bet in some cultures there is,” Susanna said, taking the bottle off him. “Rituals you do, when someone’s dying. Chants. Dances. Burning herbs.”
“Well, I wish I lived there. Shut up”—to me, when I rolled my eyes—“I do. What you’re supposed to do after someone dies, that’s all mapped out, wakes and funerals and wreaths and the month’s-mind mass. But the part where you’re waiting for them to die is at least as bad, and there’s fuck-all to tell you how to do that.”
“Speaking of when it’s over,” Susanna said. “Does anyone know what happens to the house, afterwards?”
There was a small, intricate silence. Leon pulled a stem of jasmine off the wall and spun it between his fingers, not looking at either of us.
“I mean, it might not come to that,” Susanna said. “We’re getting a second opinion. But if.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Is it not a bit early to, to go divvying up his stuff?”
Both of them ignored that. Leon said, “Granddad and Gran’s will said Hugo gets to live here.”
“And then what?”
“You mean,” Leon said, “is it going to be sold.”
“Yeah.”
“Not if I get a say in it.”
“Well, obviously,” Susanna said, with a touch of exasperation. “What I’m asking is if anyone knows whether we do get a say. If it goes to our dads, and they want to sell it and split the money . . .”
Another silence, this one longer. This whole issue had never occurred to me, and I had no idea what I thought about it. It sounded like Susanna and Leon were not just set on hanging on to the place but also taking it for granted that I felt the same way, although I had no idea what they thought we would do with it: rent it out? share it, all of