Page 13 of These Summer Storms

And easy to please if you weren’t his daughter.

Alice had been a teenager the last time she’d been at Skipping Stone Farm, barely more than a barn in a field, rolling her eyes while the whole place fawned over Franklin as he loaded a case of the sauce, stickered with a mailing label and identified with a Sharpie, into the back of the ancient truck he drove around as though he were a normal person.

She pulled the jar down, running her fingers over its new, proper label. An artist’s rendering of the barn. A website. Ingredients. It had come a long way, just like all the rest of them.

It was strange that the nutrition label was the thing that got her. There, in that pantry that smelled like her childhood summers, full of heavy salt air circulated by the ancient ceiling fan, surrounded by a million things that would never have made her think of her father and now would never make her think of anyone else, a fat tear spilled over and down her cheek.

“Don’t let that door slam,” her mother called from the kitchen, where she was setting a teakettle to boil. Alice swiped all evidence of emotion away. “It sticks, and we’ll have to call Charlie to get you out.”

Charlie, thecarpenter/handyman/gardener/whateverelse her parents needed at any given moment (married to Lorraine, cook/housekeeper/whatever else her parents needed at any given moment), lived in one of three small staff cottages on the north end of the island, waiting to be summoned to the main house, her mother’s own personal errand boy at the ripe age of sixty-something.

“How are Charlie and Lorraine?” Alice called out, clearing her throat and straightening her spine, weirdly grateful for the question—something to ask when she didn’t want to ask about anything important.

“They’re Charlie and Lorraine.” A classically Elisabeth reply, as if to say,Why would there be anything interesting to say about that?

Alice grabbed the coffee and returned to the kitchen, where her mother was no longer alone. Next to her, rummaging in the ancient metal-lined bread drawer that had been saved from the earliest iteration of the kitchen, wearing only pajama bottoms, was Alice’s older brother. “Sam.”

He shot up, a package of English muffins in his hand. “Hey! The prodigal returns! And Dad not here to slay the fatted calf.”

Alice offered a tight smile, the only defense against Sam’s trademark snark. “Funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” he said, his false warmth sliding into something that might have been unpleasant if he weren’t so good at it. “Whadja do, walk?”

“She took thetrain,” Elisabeth said.

He smirked, the annoying expression that older brothers learned early and used often. “You could have hitched a ride. There’s a helicopter.”

“It might surprise you to hear that the last thing I wanted to do yesterday was share a ride with Dad’s PR team while they decided how best to protect the stock price.”

“Look at you, woman of the people,” Sam retorted. “I bet you get so much love at the monthly meeting of the 99%, what with how you’re not allowed within a city block of Storm headquarters.”

And there it was. The reference to the past. Alice headed for the coffeepot on the counter. “How is Storm headquarters, Sam? How’s that job down the hall from Dad going?”

“Well, he’s dead now, so not great,” Sam said, lacking any sensitivity, as if he were made of Teflon—nonstick, but toxic.

It occurred to Alice that somewhere in her brother’s emotions (such as they were) was a thread of…anticipation? Here was Sam’s chanceto make a play for the title he’d believed was his birthright from the moment he’d learned the wordnepotism—CEO of Storm Incorporated. As far as Alice was concerned, Sam could have it. But they all knew the truth—that if Franklin were already in a grave, he’d be turning over in it at the idea.

“Dammit!” Elisabeth cried, turning in a circle at the butcher block island.

Alice and Sam looked to her. “What?”

“I left my damn tablet upstairs!”

And then to each other, the animosity between them disappearing in a way only siblings experienced. Sam quirked a brow at Alice. Elisabeth’s irritation felt outsized for the inconvenience of leaving a tablet on a different floor of the house. “Okay…” he said slowly, as though he was speaking to a moody toddler. “We’ll get it for you.”

“I don’t need anyone to get it! I am perfectly able to get it myself,” their mother shot back, slamming the coffeepot down on the counter before storming from the room.

Alice slid a look at her brother. “She seems to be taking everything well.”

Sam nodded. “Couldn’t agree more.”

The grandfather clock in the foyer chimed, marking seven in the morning. Sam leaned against the counter, sandy blond and tan with summer, the kind of attractive men approaching their forties often were, effortlessly taking up space. On closer inspection, however, Sam didn’t look so effortless. He looked tired. “You’re up early,” she said. The observation was a question.What are you up to?

The toaster sprang, producing his English muffin. He didn’t move, returning Alice’s inspection. It was only fair, she supposed, telling herself her cracks were better hidden. Lying to herself.

“So are you,” he replied.You first.

Well. She wasn’t about to tell him what she’d been up to. Sam would sink his teeth into Alice’s night at the Quahog Quay—theWho?andWhat?andWhy wasn’t it your fiancé?andCome to think of it where is your fiancé?—and wield it like a weapon for the next five days.