smallest bit interested in hearing about my work or my plans. Or, beyond this new development, my life in general. I was foolish to have assumed that things might have changed.
“We’ll see.” But I had no intention of putting Kat—or myself—through days of awkward family festivities. To say nothing of the stilted relationship that, beyond the DNA we shared, gave us practically nothing in common.
“I see you’re not drinking your wine, Katharina…” my father was saying toward the end of the main course.
“Oh, uh, I’m not much of a wine drinker, actually. But I do love beer.”
You would have thought she had admitted to skinning small animals alive or something. Heads turned, silverware clattered against dishes, gasps all around. People stared. Father’s eyebrows climbed his skull. Christ almighty.
“We’re going to have to educate you in the joys of the grape. That glass has some of our finest Cabernet Sauvignon from the family vineyard. 2008, I believe. A dry year. The harsher the weather, the better the wine.”
Kat blinked, visibly shocked. “The family vineyard… as in your family’s vineyard?”
“And winery, yes. In Napa. Turning Windmill Winery, established 1986.”
Kat’s face blushed deep pink. “Oh well, yes, I should definitely have some wine then.” She snapped up her glass and downed half of it in one gulp. I had to raise my fist to my mouth to cover the chuckle behind the back of my hand. Fortunately, Mother hadn’t seen. She was more focused on her conversation with my cousin Lindsay and her new boyfriend than she was on Kat’s uncouth attempt at sampling the family label.
Kat finally came up for air complete with purple moustache and nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, that’s amazing wine. So good.” She then dabbed at her lip with a color-coordinated napkin.
The rest of dinner followed a similarly amusing path. I was especially entertained when Father found out she was Canadian. His eyes widened and he all but asked her if she went moose hunting regularly, used antlers in all of her decorating and lived in a yurt.
Yeah. Some things just never changed.
After dinner, people filed out of the dining room and back out to the terrace to watch the sunset. Instead of moving with them, Father hooked a hand around my arm and asked me to meet him in his study. Ah, so apparently it was time for the Big Talk ™. I’d hoped that he’d decide to forgo it, but no such luck.
And as bad luck would have it, the first wife, not the second, was waiting for me in the entry hall. Though I was flattering myself to think it was by chance, because Claire stood lingering, as if waiting, while others filtered around her out toward the terrace.
“Lucas—”
My eyes snapped to her, but I quickly turned away as if I was very pressed to get to my next meeting. Unlike Kat, Claire was a reed-thin size zero with shiny dark hair. As if for effect, she was wringing her perfectly manicured hands. I’d once thought her beautiful. She couldn’t even hold a candle to Kat.
Claire was also a woman that, for a long time, I could hardly look at without feeling nauseous, frustrated and angry. But that had been behind me for several years now.
Now I just felt nothing at all. Thank God.
We may have once been married, but since then she’d been a perfect stranger to me for twelve times longer than the marriage had lasted. Had she not somehow latched on to my family, I’d never have had to lay eyes on her again. But unfortunately, as it was, she turned up at practically every family event, which gave me all that much more incentive to stay away.
Tonight, I wasn’t in the mood to spare her a hello or how are you doing. I just stopped and waited when she planted herself in my path for whatever melodramatic performance she would no doubt give.
“Um.” She furiously bit her bottom lip and looked around her. “I just wanted to… wanted to extend my congratulations and wishes for your happiness. The two of you look very happy.” She batted her eyes a few times, as if giving the illusion of fighting back performative tears. Non-existent tears.
I nodded. “Thank you. We are very happy.” Then I turned to go.
She gaped at me. “Don’t you have anything to say to me? Like maybe I should have gotten some warning first or something?” she practically screeched.
I turned back, completely perplexed. “Warning? About what?”