Page 140 of These Summer Storms

Distraction was good. Cards would be good. If they were trapped, cards would be great. “We should tell Emily.” The words were barely out of her mouth when Emily and Claudia appeared, arms laden with tall glass votive candles.

“Tell Emily what?” the youngest Storm quipped.

“Cards?” Greta asked.

“Oooh.” Emily approached. “Yes.”

“We thought people might need these,” Claudia said, brandishing the candles.

Emily lowered her voice and looked at Greta. “I also thought maybe you’d like a buffer from Mom.”

“You arewhisperingagain!” Elisabeth said.

“Thank you,” Greta said to Emily, and the two small words felt somehow immense, as she relinquished the reins to Elisabeth.

Emily pasted on a smile and turned to face the room. “They’re fixed candles I had made by the priestess at my favorite botanica, which means that once they’re lit, they have to stay lit, but I figured we’ve got time.” One by one, she set them on the table, speaking their promise aloud: “Wisdom…positivity…grace…” She looked down. “More grace…” Again.“Clarity…protection…creativity…love…moregrace…”

Alice slid a look at Claudia. “So this is your trick for dealing with the in-laws?”

Claudia smiled. “I’ll never admit it.” She set the two in her hands down. “Health and abundance.”

“Good that you got that one,” Greta said. “Where else would we find abundance in our family?”

“Abundance isn’t only about money,” Claudia said, assertive in a way she usually was not. Maybe a week with them had changed her, too. “It’s about getting what we need. Filling up with what’s good for us. That’s what I wish for you.” She lit a match. Lit the candle. “Withwho’sgood for us, maybe.”

“Alice is definitely doing that,” Sam said, coming through the door with the ice bucket.

“You’re gross,” Alice replied immediately, sitting down and opening a deck of cards. Minutes later, with more candles lit (wisdom, protection, clarity, grace), the family was gathered like a perverse Rockwell around the mahogany card table at the center of the room. Claudia curled up on the sofa in the corner with her 1107, her own candle (love), and her own G and T, having been through enough Storm family card games to know they were not for the faint of heart.

There was no discussion of what they would play—it was Take, an obscure game that Alice had never encountered outside of this place, allegedly passed down from Franklin’s side. It was played in rounds with two decks and a level of cutthroat competition that had been bred into them all from birth by their father. They’d learned the rules at Franklin’s knee, and when they made mistakes, weren’t paying attention, forgot the card count, or grew too chatty, they’d borne the brunt of his competitive spirit.

The game began as though they were in church, the first round played in silence with the exception of a periodical call-and-response to the only word the game required.Take.

The second round was Emily’s deal, and she shuffled the massive deck with expert skill once, twice. On the third time, she said, “I wonder if I’ll ever shuffle cards without thinking of him.”

Of course, it was Emily who broke the seal. Emily, practiced in meditation, in having a thought and letting it flow through her without judgment or panic or frustration or rage, who had a thought about their father and just…let it out.

Around the table, the energy stuttered.

Elisabeth recovered first, tossing out a card. “Are we going to do this, now?”

Everyone looked to her.

“Do what?” And just as it hadn’t been a surprise that it was Emily who invoked Franklin’s name first, it was no surprise that it was Emily who pushed their mother to explain what they all already understood.

Emily, forever hopeful that she might crack Elisabeth’s icy exterior.

Not yet, though. Not until Elisabeth was ready. “By all means, let’s talk about him. What would you like to say?”

“About who, Mom?” Greta asked, poking the bear.

Elisabeth turned a cool gaze on her. “Your father, Greta.”

“He hasn’t even been gone a week,” Emily said, softly. “I’m not sure any of us know what we’d like to say. But I wish—” Her voice caught, and she looked past the table, to Claudia, no longer reading. Instead, watching her wife, nodding her encouragement. Holding Emily, even from a distance. “I wish I could play cards with him again.”

A fat tear spilled down Alice’s cheek, liquid fire, and she wiped it away as quickly as she could, even as she reached for Emily’s hand.

Sam cleared his throat. “When we were kids, you were always desperate to play Take with us. Do you remember?” Emily nodded with a little laugh. “God, wehatedit. You weren’t good. You never paid any attention to the cards. But any time any of us teased you or complained, Dad would tell us to shut up and pull you onto his lap to play your hand with you.”