and weep over some imagined slight. Instead, Louisa’s version of Melody’s face smiled at him, curious and warm and sweet. He felt like running his hand over her hair to feel the shape of her skull. Unnerved, he squeezed her upper arm a little too hard and she winced.
Bea hugged both girls tightly and then held them at arm’s length, exclaiming over their hair, their height, their identical smattering of freckles on unidentical faces. “You are such beauties!” she kept saying, pulling them close to her and kissing them on both cheeks, making them both think of a word they’d never had occasion to use before: continental. “How have you grown so much since last summer? You’re young women.”
Nora and Louisa beamed with pleasure. Walker filled everyone’s glasses with champagne and offered Nora and Louisa flutes of lemonade. His spirits were high and so was the color in his cheeks. Jack watched him appraising the room and the table, eyes darting, making sure everything was perfectly in its place, before bustling back to the kitchen.
Nora and Louisa were fascinated by everything: the apartment, the table, their mother’s unlikely flirtatious demeanor (“Appetizers! Plural? More than one?” Melody was nearly giddy); their uncle Jack who was a more petite, elfin version of their uncle Leo; their high-spirited aunt Beatrice who they both reticently realized was a slightly prettier version of their mother. They both instinctively gravitated toward Walker, who was wearing a chef’s apron over his gently protruding middle. The only unsurprising presence in the room was their father, who sat at the table, reassuring and solid, tearing into a piece of bread, sniffing one of the runny cheeses, and winking at his girls as if to say, This is something else, isn’t it?
Walker beckoned the girls into the kitchen and they eagerly followed him. He topped off their flutes of lemonade with a generous glug of champagne. “Don’t tell your mother,” he said. “And I’m not keeping track of how much is in this bottle.” He plunged the champagne into a sweaty copper ice bucket and headed back to the living room. Louisa and Nora drank their cocktails quickly and made new ones, adding just enough lemonade to not have the contents look suspicious.
Out in the living room, Walker announced they’d give Stephanie and Leo ten more minutes and then dinner would be served. Walker had lined the table with platters of bread and cheese, tiny ceramic bowls with olives. He’d scattered lemons and twigs of rosemary down the center. Melody’s admiration was worth the extra effort.
“It looks just like Italy,” she said to Walker.
“And when have you been to Italy?” Jack asked.
Walker threw Jack a look that said don’t. Melody was too pleased to even notice. “Oh, I haven’t, but I watch the Travel Channel all the time. Right, Walt? Don’t I watch the Travel Channel nonstop? They just did a piece on Sorrento, all the lemons, so pretty. Limoncello.”
“Don’t say another word.” Walker ran to the kitchen and returned seconds later waving a bright bottle of unopened limoncello in his hand. “For dessert!” Melody actually jumped up and down a little and clapped her hands. Jack reluctantly recognized that this was nice: his family admiring Walker’s exquisite taste. Wait until dinner, they were all going to be blown away.
On the other side of the river, lightning was illuminating the New Jersey skyline. Everyone moved to the window to watch the storm make its way across the Hudson. Nora slipped away, unnoticed, down the hall. She couldn’t have named the impulse that made her want to see Jack and Walker’s bedroom, she just wanted to see it. The door was closed and she gently knocked even though she knew everyone was still in the living room. She opened the door, crossed the threshold, and quickly closed the door behind her. She felt against the wall for the light switch, flipped the light on.
She didn’t know what she expected to see, but it wasn’t the room she found herself standing in—an entirely ordinary bedroom housing what she assumed was an antique bed and rocker, a long dresser with lots of framed photos on top. The bed looked small to Nora, especially for Walker who was—well, he was substantial. The bed was neatly made. There were no clothes scattered around like her parents’ room. It was just a tidy bedroom.
She walked over to the dresser and started looking at the pictures. The biggest one, the one in the center, was of Jack