Page 15 of These Summer Storms

“We’re not all thinking about what we get in the will, Sam,” Greta snapped. “Just you, angling for that promotion you couldn’t score when he was alive.”

“You’re very touchy for someone who got laid all night, Greta,” he replied.

“Sam…” Alice said, as though she could stop him. Which she couldn’t. She’d never been able to before, and now—she no longer fooled herself into thinking she had any control.

“Point is, it’s stupid for her to keep it a secret now.”

“Stupid or not, it’s none of your business,” Alice said. The affair between her sister and her father’s chauffeur/body man over the years was the worst-kept secret in the family. Everyone knew about it, even as Greta refused to make the relationship public for fear of Franklin’s censure—a fear that Alice knew firsthand wasn’t unfounded—not because Tony was an employee, but because he belonged to Franklin.

Franklin Storm was a man who liked to amass. Land, art, companies, experiences, money. Power above all, but also attention. And people. And he didn’t share well.

Alice extended the steaming mug to Greta, an offer of sisterly solidarity. The eldest Storm accepted the mug, but not the support, her attention already on the kitchen door. “Is Mom up?”

“Is she ever,” Sam said.

Greta looked from one to the other, her tone going sharp. “What’s that mean? What happened? Is she upset?” Of all of them, Greta was the most tuned in to Elisabeth’s moods, always looking for ways to make her happy, one of the myriad reasons she kept her relationship with Tony secret.

“In a sense?” Alice said.

“She nearly threw a coffeepot at Alice.”

Greta’s eyes went wide.

“Iknow,” Alice retorted. “And Sam wasright there.”

Everyone laughed, and for a moment it all felt okay.

“When did you get in?” Greta asked, heading for the fridge.

“A half hour ago?”

Greta lifted a yogurt in Alice’s direction. “This morning?”

She nodded at the question and the yogurt.

“Yes, let’s probe that,” Sam said, sounding like he was fifteen and not a grown man. “We all know where Greta was last night, but where wereyou?”

Alice focused on peeling the foil top off the little terra-cotta pot. “There was a storm. I didn’t want to risk sailing in it.”

It was Greta’s and Sam’s turn to share a look.

“Yeah. You’re going to need a better one than that if you want Mom to believe it,” Sam said. “There’s always a storm.”

No kidding.“Exactly. And we shouldn’t sail in them.” She paused. “Plus, there were photographers.”

That stopped them. Sam spoke first. “Where?”

“At the station.”

“How’d they know you would be there?” Greta asked.

Sam cursed under his breath. “They knew because Alice prides herself on being Not Like Other Storms. Public school teacher, hero of the proletariat, having forsaken the rest of us. But whether or not she was going to turn up was one of the truly interesting questions of the day, and byinteresting,I meanworth decent money.”

“It wasn’t a question. Of course I came.” Alice swallowed her irritation, shoving it down alongside the shame she already felt for not expecting the photographers. Her father would have expected them. She ignored the tightness in her chest. “I’m impressed you can use the wordproletariatin a sentence, though, Samuel.”

Sam ignored the insult; he wasn’t the kind of person who got insulted.

“Did they get photos?” Greta asked.