The food was good, but Harriet didn’t eat much on principle. Nana Stella headed into the kitchen to get another bottle of wine from the wine fridge, and came back with a bottle tucked under her arm and a cake stand balanced precariously in her hands. It held a perfectly layered chocolate cake with shaved chocolate sprinkles. “Look what I found.”
My grandmother set the stand in an open spot in front of my mother.
“I’ll get the plates,” Nana Stella said happily.
“You can’t just bring out the cake!” my mother protested. “There’s an order to how things are done, Mother!”
The two bickered as they carried the dinner plates to the kitchen. I felt guilty for not helping, but I needed a moment to clear my head. I’d come here hoping for two things—information and financial help for the kids. Then again, asking in front of the kids was a terrible idea. Which meant this dinner was a total wash.
Harriet picked up her fork and gave me a grin. “That looks sinful.”
Cyn laughed. “Then I definitely need some.”
She snatched up her fork too as though Harriet were about to finish it off in one bite.
“Don’t you dare,” I warned, swiveling my head to give them both a pointed look.
“Grandma’s not going to give you what you want, so there’s no need for you to try staying on her good side,” Harriet said in an I told you so voice.
It took a second for her words to sink in. “What are you talking about?”
Elena leaned forward and turned her head to face me. “You want to know about Great-Grandma Sylvia. Nana Stella mustn’t have told you anything, so you went to Grandma Gertrude.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Jack said, his attention focused on his phone. “You haven’t been very subtle.”
“Fat lot of good it did me,” I muttered.
“Don’t worry,” Harriet said, lowering her fork as my mother swept back into the room. “There are other ways of getting information.”
The gleam in her eye suggested she was up to something, but my mother had returned with the stack of dessert plates. She set them on the table and moved the cake closer to her—and farther from Cyn’s and Harriet’s forks.
“Nana Stella is making coffee.” Mom glanced up and held my gaze. “Decaf. I noticed your dark circles.”
I nearly laughed. Mom didn’t think I got enough sleep, which was true, but it was such a minor problem compared to the rest of the issues I was facing.
“Is decaf even real coffee?” Jack asked with a hint of attitude.
“It most certainly is,” my mother pronounced in a regal voice, “but you will not be having any. You are far too young.”
Jack lifted his gaze and smirked at me, dropping his phone in his lap. “But I go to Starbu—”
“To school every day after a good night’s sleep,” I interjected with a forced smile. “Rest is as important as diet for an athlete.”
My mother shot Harriet a determined look. “Yes, Harriet. A well-balanced diet is essential to your growth and brain development.”
Harriet burst out laughing, then said, “I’ll keep that in mind, Grandma.”
Mom didn’t look amused, but she just heaved a long-suffering sigh and turned her attention to slicing up the cake and passing out plates.
Nana Stella had just returned carrying a tray with the coffee and cups when my mother’s doorbell sounded: a multi-bell chime that played “Clair de Lune.” I’d suggested it might be a tad much, but Mom had said she wasn’t going to hear “Away Down South in Dixie” every time someone came to her door. The conversation had devolved after that, and I knew it was pointless to suggest that she get a simple doorbell that just chimed a tone. She didn’t need a symphony every time someone dropped by.
Mom’s brow furrowed. “I’m not expecting anyone.”
Harriet practically leapt from her chair. “I’ll get it.”
My mother watched her rush from the room with a dark look in her eyes. Gertrude Tinsley wasn’t a stupid woman, and she knew Harriet was up to something. I only wished I knew what it was so I could prepare for the fallout.
Less than ten seconds later, Harriet returned with a new guest, my cousin Ella Hughes—my father’s brother’s daughter.
She stopped at the entrance to the dining room, her intense violet eyes sweeping the space. Ella was a reporter for an investigative reporting website, and nothing escaped her notice. Which could be either really good or really bad, all things considered.
“Ella.” My mother’s back was ramrod stiff and her voice was icy. “What a surprise.”
“A little birdie told me there was a party,” she said, walking around me as she slipped off her coat and hung it over the back of the chair between me and Cyn. She dropped her large messenger bag on the floor with a heavy thud and took a seat. “Looks like I missed dinner, but I’m glad I made it for dessert.” She turned to me and winked. “Hey, cousin.”
“It’s good to see you, Ella,” I said, meaning every word. Ella and I hadn’t been close growing up—my mother had disliked Ella’s mother with a passion—and while Ella and I had made small efforts to invite each other to major life events, we’d never spent much time one-on-one. I’d been busy as a mother with three kids and Ella had been juggling her career, her husband, and her now-grown son.
“Likewise.” The twinkling of her eyes told me she was still prone to mischief, and it seemed obvious Harriet had been the “birdie” who’d brought her here.
“Ella,” Mom said in a tight voice with an equally tight smile. My mother hated Ella’s mother, ergo, she detested Ella. I thought the feud was ridiculous, even more so because it had torn my dad and his brother apart, but that was my mother. When she made up her mind about something, it was nearly impossible to change it. In this case, she’d decided Ella’s mom was insufferable because she’d worn the same shade of persimmon to a fall party. No one had been able to convince her it was unintentional. I privately thought she’d been jealous because my aunt’s dress had been more fashionable. “Seems like you’d have some big story to cover instead of spending your time here,” she added.
“So you’ve been following my career, eh?” Ella asked as she intercepted a plate of cake that was being passed down Cyn’s side of the table. “Did you see the piece I did on City Hall?”
My mother hesitated before slicing another piece of cake. “No. I don’t follow fake news.”
Her hesitation told me that she had seen the story. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“I’m currently working on a story about the mayor’s reelection,” Ella said, digging into her cake with gusto. “I hear you had a fundraiser dinner for her here at the house.”
My mother locked eyes with my cousin, giving her a look that would send most people running for cover, but Ella only grinned and licked chocolate frosting off the tines of her fork.
Nana Stella leaned forward and turned her attention to my cousin. “Ella. So good to see you. How are your parents?”
“They’re great, Nana Stella,” my cousin said. Nana had always told my friends and my cousin they should consider her their grandmother too. I’d spent many hours wondering how my mother and her mother could be related. In the end, I’d chalked it up to one of life’s great mysteries.
“Tell them I said hello,” my grandmother said.
“I definitely will,” Ella said. “My mother’s quite fond of you.”
I nearly burst out laughing. Shots fired.
“So is that why you’re here?” my mother asked, passing down the last plate and folding her hands on the table in front of her.
“To exchange greetings with Nana Stella?” Ella asked. “No. That was pure bonus.”
“No,” my mother barked, looking dangerously close to losing control. “Are you here about my dinner for Mayor Harless?”
“No,” Ella said, scooping another piece of cake onto her fork. “I’m here to see Darcie.” She turned to me. “We haven’t seen each other for a while, but I heard you unlo
aded the giant Dick. Good for you.”
I choked on my wine and Cyn burst out laughing.
“Ella!” my mother shouted.
I would have been laughing right along with Cyn if my kids hadn’t been present to hear it. Ella quickly realized her faux pas. “Sorry,” she said with a grimace. “I shouldn’t have said that in front of you guys, but sometimes part of growing up is hearing hard things about your parents.” She looked Jack dead in the eyes. “And a man who cheats on his wife and family is pond scum.”
Jack lifted his chin, his jaw set. “Agreed.”
“Ditto,” Harriet said with a nod, and the glance she exchanged with Ella suggested they’d discussed this before.
When had that happened?
Elena remained silent.
“Richard is still their father,” my mother said, her voice shaking with anger, “which means he deserves their respect.”
“Deserves their respect?” Ella said, her brows shooting to her hairline. “No one deserves respect. Not even parents. We earn it. Darcie earned hers by always being there for her kids. For picking up the pieces after Big Dick ran off to go f—”
“Okay,” Cyn said, trying to hold in her laughter. “We get the point. Little ears.”
“I’ve heard worse on the school bus,” Elena said.
“You’ve upset her,” my mother said, patting Elena’s hand. Her expression hardened, and this time she didn’t attempt to hide it with any false pleasantries. “You always did like to stir up trouble, Ella.”
“Just keepin’ it real,” my cousin said, polishing off the last of her cake. Turning to Harriet, she said, “Most women wait until they turn forty to find their lady balls, like it’s some magical second puberty, but there’s nothing keeping you girls from finding them early.” She pointed her fork at them. “Do not take shit from men. Especially cheating men.”
Elena studied her with curiosity, and Harriet nodded as though she were Ella’s bright-eyed disciple.
“That’s quite enough,” Mom snapped. “Men make mistakes. We must learn how to forgive. You don’t throw the bathwater out with the baby, Darcie.”
Leave it to my mother to throw the baby out first.
She’d always taken Richard’s side, right from the beginning of our marriage. Every rocky patch we’d encountered, she’d pushed me to stay with him, telling me that relationships take work and that Tinsleys weren’t quitters. But something had changed…I had changed. Over the past six months, I’d decided that my happiness mattered. That I mattered. Even if Richard “came to his senses,” I would never take him back, because I’d been unhappy for years, and obviously, so had he. We were moving on to different phases of our lives. Separately. The fact that she kept pushing me toward a man who’d treated me so poorly—one who was clearly done with this family—wounded me deeply.
I stood and picked up my plate and wine glass. “I think I’ll take this to the kitchen.”
Before anyone could stop me, I hurried off into my mother’s marble kitchen fortress and rinsed my plate off in the sink.
“Sorry I stirred the pot, Darcie,” Ella said from behind me, carrying her empty plate and a wine glass.
I turned at the waist to face her. “You were a distraction—a good one. I presume Harriet was your little birdie?”
“I never reveal my sources,” she teased as she walked over to me. “But I do have a weakness for getting Aunt Gertrude riled up.”
I laughed and turned back to the sink. Dirty dishes were piled on the counter, and before I realized what I was doing, I started rinsing them off and putting them in the dishwasher.
“How are you doing after the divorce?” she asked quietly.
“As well as can be expected considering my husband of twenty years moved in with his twenty-two-year-old TA.” I gave her a pointed look. “She was literally an infant when we got married.”
“Bastard,” she said.
I sighed as I scrubbed a plate with a dish brush. “You know, I understand that he was unhappy, but why did he have to cheat? Why couldn’t he just leave and then find someone else?”
“Because most men don’t work that way,” she said. “At this age, they don’t want to be alone, so they won’t leave until they have the next best thing lined up.”
I nodded. There was no arguing with that.
“Sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me, Darce.”
“It’s fine,” I said, placing a plate in the dishwasher. “There’ve been occasions when I wasn’t there for you either. We didn’t get much practice when we were kids.”
“It’s not too late to change that,” she said. “We should get together for lunch next week.”
I stopped and turned back to her. “I’d like that.”
She smiled, her eyes crinkling with another telltale look of mischief.
Shaking my head, I chuckled and picked up a half-empty wine glass. I was about to dump it out when a familiar rush of heat flooded my body.
“Oh, no.”
This could not be happening. My kids were in the next room.
“Darcie, what’s wrong?” Ella asked.
Tears sprang to my eyes, but I remained frozen in indecision. Did I run outside and hope I incinerated something expendable like my mother’s trellis? Or did I stay here and try to control it?
I nearly laughed. Try to control it? Was I crazy?
The heat rose up faster than before, and this time I paid attention as it raced through my arms and into my hands. The glass in my hand began to glow like blown glass and the wine began to boil.
“Uh… Darcie…”
I concentrated the heat into the glass and the wine caught fire, like a flambé dessert, flames shooting up into the air.
Ella jumped back and ran away.
Weird, I’d never considered her to be the running-from-danger type, but then seconds later, I heard a blast of air and both my hand and wine glass were covered in foam from the small fire extinguisher Ella was pointing at me.
“What’s going on out there?” my mother called out in disapproval. “What’s that strange noise?”
“Nothing, Aunt Gertie,” Ella said, watching my hand, presumably to see if the flames would erupt again.
“We’re fine,” I said, surprised I had the wits to speak.
The hot flash was gone—a shorter one this time.
Ella set the extinguisher on the counter, neither of us saying anything for several long seconds.
I set the now warped and elongated glass in the sink, then turned on the faucet to wash the foam off my hand. The glass sizzled as the water splashed onto it. My hand was completely unmarked.
“What the hell just happened, Darcie?” Ella hissed in a whisper.
I was about to deny that anything had happened, but she was no fool, and she’d seen it with her own eyes.
“Oh, my god,” she said, reaching for my arm. “How badly are you burned?”
“I’m not burned at all.” I let her tug my arm and examine my hand.
“But you just held molten glass…How…” Her eyes flew wide. “What the hell is going on, Darcie?”
“That, Ella, is the question of the year.”
Chapter Thirteen
Part of me wanted to confide in her, but I couldn’t decide whether I should. My mind was on overload, and my whole system was twitchy with anxiety.
“I have to go.” I turned around to head toward the dining room.
“Darcie, wait.” Ella started to reach for me, only to jerk her hand back.
She was scared to touch me, not that I blamed her. I was scared of me too.
I hurried to the dining room. “Thank you for a fascinating dinner, Mother, but we’re ready to go. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
“Yeah, when hell freezes over,” Nana Stella said, then slugged down the rest of the wine like it was a shot.
Sucking in a deep breath, I propped my hands on my hips. “Kids, time to go.”
“You can’t leave now,” my mother s
aid, getting to her feet. “We didn’t have our scheduled family conversation in the parlor!”
“Harriet’s not feeling well,” Jack said. “Maybe it was something she didn’t eat.”
Harriet covered her mouth with her hand to hide her giggles, although I wasn’t sure why she bothered. Everyone heard them quite clearly.
My children got up from the table, although Elena seemed reluctant to leave. I could tell from her expression she was worried about leaving my mother alone after the spectacular way dinner had unraveled.
“Mom,” I said, “maybe you and Elena can go out to tea next weekend.”
Elena’s face lit up and my offer seemed to have caught my mother by surprise. “Yes,” she said slowly, then warmed up to the idea. “I’d love that.” She turned to Elena and squeezed her hand. “We’ll dress up and I’ll take you to the tea house. I’ll teach you the proper way to drink tea, and we’ll have those pretty little cakes.”
Elena smiled back at her. “I’d love that, Grandma.”
“Great,” I said, backing up toward the living room. “We’ll talk about the logistics this week. Let’s go, kids.”
“What’s that smell?” Harriet asked, sniffing.
Cyn took a big sniff. “I smell a faint hint of smoke.”
She gave me a horrified look, and I saw her hand reach into her pocket. Was she carrying around her small notebook?
I could feel Ella staring at me with her super-observant eyes.
“Everything is fine,” I said, “but it’s definitely time to go.” Before anyone could argue with me, I turned around and headed to the entryway, picking up my purse and my coat and opening the front door.
Just as I was about to make my escape, my mother shouted my name. I glanced back to see her standing in the entrance to the foyer…holding the melted wine glass. Which looked like a glass dildo.
Oh. Crap.
Why hadn’t I thought to hide the evidence?
“What is this?” she demanded, her sharp gaze scanning the lot of us. “Is this a bong?”
A bong?
There was a moment of awkward silence. I suspected my older kids were shocked their prim and proper grandmother knew what a bong was yet didn’t recognize the shape of a sex toy, because I wasn’t naïve enough to believe they were equally ignorant.
Let it All Burn: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (From the Ashes Book 1) Page 11