Page 104 of Cakes for the Grump

“Always passing it off to me. Shameless.”

“Resourceful, darling.”

He pours me some wine while I think. Personal… What is it that I want to know about him?

A topic comes to mind. Something I know nothing about. I’m not sure about it, but he looks at me expectedly.

“Your mom—what was she like?” I follow up when his brow furrows. “You don’t have to answer. If you don’t want to.”

He shakes his head. “I will… She was…soft. I remember her telling me to always go along with whatever was happening around us. She never wanted to attract my dad’s rage. For me. For my sister. And I wish for her too?—”

He takes a sip of his wine as if needing a steadying moment.

“—Behind closed doors, when we couldn’t be there when it was the two of them…”

A final sentence that trails off, not finishing the story because his expression does that for him. The expression in his eyes is vicious. Perhaps not the best topic I’ve chosen. We eat most of our food and then he picks it up again.

“There are days I regret listening to her,” says Luke. “For going along with who he wanted me to be. Maybe if I fought it all, she’d still be alive.”

I won’t have it. “She’s your mom. Of course, you listened to her.”

He looks down at my hand. The one that’s come over the table and grabbed his.

“Sorry,” says Luke with a wry twist of his mouth. “This got dark, and we’re supposed to shut off our brains tonight.”

I squeeze his hand. “It’s okay to miss her, you know. Even if you don’t agree with everything she was. That’s—that’s how I feel about my dad. I miss him.”

“He’s gone? I’m sorry.”

“No, he’s alive. I meant…I miss the dad I want him to be all the time.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not tonight.”

He considers me. “We make quite a pair, don’t we?”

Our fingers twine together tighter. I fear he can hear my heartbeat through that one point of contact, because it is so loud in my own ears.This is good practice, I tell myself.

“What else did Lady Francine talk about?” he asks.

“She complained, actually. That she’s not got enough time with me. How I don’t even know how to waltz.”

“You don’t waltz? That’s not going to do.”

He tugs on my hand and pulls me out of the chair.

“Is thereactualwaltzing at the conference? Please tell me you’re kidding!”

“Come, peasant.”

He pulls us to the foyer space right before the living room and then disappears back around the corner. I’m about to impatiently follow after him when the music changes. It deepens. Becomes poetic, haunting, and ruled by violin strings.

Luke comes back and holds out his hand.

I shake my head. “This will be embarrassing.”

“We’ll start simple. I promise.”