Page 139 of These Summer Storms

Greta cleared her throat and looked to Alice. “So, she just went home?”

“Didn’t even say goodbye,” Elisabeth replied, sipping her drink. “Not even my grandchildren said goodbye. I suppose now that your father’s gone, that’s how it’s going to be. Everyone will ignore me.”

Greta got as close to rolling her eyes as she ever did. “Yes, Mom. I’m sure that’s why they didn’t say goodbye, and not the fact that their family is in chaos.”

“Oh, you’re speaking to me again?” Elisabeth shot back.

“Well,” Alice said into the silence that fell, “as fun asthisall seems, I really just came in to grab some of Dad’s lanterns—the power is out, and it’s going to get dark soon.”

“I’ll help,” Greta said, dropping her book and leaping from her chair.

Elisabeth waved a hand in the direction of a low cabinet in the corner of the room and Alice extracted her phone, turning on the flashlight and crouching to reach into the cabinet and pull out a box of small votive candles. “These aren’t going to be very useful if we lose power all night.”

“They’ll do for now,” Greta replied, and the duo settled into a quiet assembly line, filling the little picturesque lanterns with tiny candles in a woeful lack of preparation for a night without power.

Greta and Alice shared a look before Greta asked, quietly, “What’s happening with Sam?”

Alice looked to her and mouthed, “She left!”

Greta’s eyes went wide. “Left,left?”

Alice shrugged. “I think?”

“Oh shit!”

“I wish the two of you would stop whispering. If you have something to say, you can say it to my face,” Elisabeth interjected sharply from across the room.

Oh, boy.Alice recognized this Elisabeth, cantankerous and sharp, the product of what Alice would guess was a wicked hangover from the night before, and too much hair of the dog.

They were saved from having to reply by Sam popping his head into the room. “Here you all are.” He looked to Elisabeth. “Mom, I see we’re starting early.”

“What else should we be doing with this ice before it melts?” she quipped, raising the ice bucket in his direction. “Be a darling and go fetch some more, will you?”

He crossed to collect the bucket. “I’ll join you.”

“And that is why you are my favorite son.”

“I’m your only son, but I’ll take it.”

Elisabeth met Greta’s gaze, cool and assessing. “And you, Greta? Would you like a drink?”

It felt like a test, because it was one. Was Greta willing to concede that what had happened with Tony was unpleasant, but necessary? That Elisabeth knew, as ever, what was best?

Alice and Sam pretended the question didn’t hang heavy like the rain outside even as they held their breath for Greta’s answer. Pretended, too, that when it came, it wasn’t a portent of what was to come. “No.”

Elisabeth stiffened imperceptibly (to anyone other than her children), and triumph must have coursed through Greta, because she added, “Considering we don’t know how long the power will be out, we should probably leave some ice for food?”

A hit. “Why would we do that?” Elisabeth said, her cool tone going arctic. “We don’t need food. You’ve had plenty of food this week.”

Greta did not reply to the obvious swipe at her weight—the Waspy mother’s weapon of choice since Martin Luther took a hammer to a church door. Alice leaped in. “Traditionally, humans eat daily, Mom. Three times.”

Elisabeth thrust a jar in Alice’s direction from across the room. “Here. Have an olive.”

All hail gin o’clock.

“Tempting, but pass.”

Greta snorted a little laugh, and opened an old wooden cigar boxthat had been the home of playing cards and matches for as long as they could remember. She removed a matchbook and two decks, brandishing them toward Alice…an invitation for distraction.