Dark Redemption - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,43

hellos, polite and very curt, distant, though Lincoln smiles a little more and tries to make nice.

"Have you two met?" Mom asks Marguerite, who nervously twists a strand of her hair around her finger.

"Yes. Yesterday.” Jacqueline smiles. "We actually had breakfast together. Dante made waffles."

"Dante knows how to make waffles?" Mom raises an eyebrow.

I nod.

"Well, I guess we know what we're having for breakfast today."

I laugh, but dutifully walk over to the counter and start to get out all of the supplies that I need.

I don't mind being busy with this. It actually puts me at ease to do something with my hands instead of walking on eggshells around my mom, Jacqueline, and Marguerite, and even Lincoln, to make sure that breakfast doesn't veer off into one particular direction that neither of us want.

And it doesn't. Everything is pleasant, actually, beyond pleasant.

Mom is in a good mood. She sits next to Jacqueline and gushes about all of the interior design work that she has recently got done on her house. She shows the little cottage and all the details about the interior. She's so much more open and outgoing and friendly.

I realize why she has so many friends in town and why everyone invites her to all of the parties.

This is just a glimpse, the kind that a family gets, a side of someone very popular that lives with you on a daily basis, but the side that you rarely see because you are, after all, a family member.

The whole time, they laugh and practically giggle.

Marguerite sits next to Lincoln with a sour expression on her face. I try to get her engaged. I ask her about her pregnancy and Mom indulges that topic just a little bit to keep everything at bay.

She even offers her condolences for all the nausea that Marguerite has been experiencing.

But as soon as Marguerite says, "Well, I'm feeling a lot better now ..."

"Good," Mom adds, and then shows Jacqueline more of the interior plans that she has for the other parts of the estate. "You know, you and Dante really have to come and visit me sometime. It's marvelous. I have a beautiful library, which I know you'll love."

Jacqueline smiles and her whole face lights up. Not only do they share their love for animals, but also books, and fiction in general. It helps that Jacqueline has a lot of profound things to say about Patricia Highsmith, one of my mother's favorite writers, as well as Thomas Hardy and Nora Roberts.

Like Mom, Jacqueline is a nondiscriminatory reader who loves stories with passion that I rarely see. There are no highbrow/lowbrow writers. There is just a good story and a bad one.

After we finish the waffles, Marguerite helps collect all the dishes and starts loading them into the dishwasher while Lincoln and I have another round of Bloody Marys and start talking about investments around the kitchen island.

Mom and Jacqueline remain in place, debating the merits of Philip Roth's early work and comparing it to the work of the less-known Beatniks writers, friends of Jack Kerouac, but the ones that I have never heard of.

"Are you okay?" I look over to Marguerite, who finishes loading the dishes and comes up for air in a little bit of a huff.

Her stomach is starting to weigh her down considerably, and I notice that she has to catch her breath now almost after every simple exertion.

"I just can't believe that your mom likes Jacqueline so much," she says a little bit under her breath, turning herself away from the two of them, sitting by the bay window. "She doesn’t like anyone."

"I know. I'm shocked, to say the least."

"You are?" Marguerite asks, her eyes getting big.

"Of course. I mean, I was so certain that she was going to hate her, or at least be incredibly cold to her. But for some reason, last night, they just struck up this conversation and Mom was in a good mood, or ... I have no idea. And she even caught us almost doing it out on the patio."

The words just slip out, and the expression on Marguerite's face changes. Suddenly I see how unfair my mom has been to her and how much that has hurt her.

"I just tried to be her friend and have an actual mother/daughter relationship with her for so long, and it's all to no avail. She doesn't care. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with Jacqueline. She's nice and I like her a lot, but why