Page 103 of The Housekeeper

Chapter Forty-one

“Are those Mom’srings?” Tracy whispered.

“Looks like it,” I replied, careful not to move my lips.

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“This must be quite the shock,” Elyse acknowledged.

I nodded, but the truth was that I really wasn’t all that surprised. At least a small part of me had suspected this was where their relationship was headed. I just hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. It was barely four months since my mother’s death.

Not that I was one to stand on ceremony, to demand an obligatory one-year period of mourning, even though most experts on grieving advise waiting a year before making any major decisions. But my father had been stuck in place for so many years that I could hardly begrudge him his need to move on, or deny him his right to be happy. Still, couldn’t he and Elyse just have continued on as they’d been doing? Why get married? Why the secrecy? And why the big rush?

“Do you think she’s pregnant?” Tracy deadpanned, as if privy to my thoughts.

“I’m sure you have questions,” Elyse said. “I just want you girls to know how much I love your father, and how I’m going to do everything in my power to be the wife he deserves.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, striving to be magnanimous. “I’m just not sure I understand.”

“What’s not to understand?” our father asked. “I asked Elyse to marry me; she said yes; we took the train to Niagara Falls last week and got married.”

Elyse laughed. “I know it sounds silly, but ever since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of honeymooning in Niagara Falls. And, well, it seems that your father is a man who makes dreams come true.”

“Now for sure I’m going to throw up,” Tracy mumbled into my shoulder.

“But why the secrecy?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well, it was all rather spur of the moment,” Elyse began.

“You had to make arrangements; you had to get a marriage license—”

“Do you want the truth?” my father interrupted, his smile threatening to disappear. “This,what’s happening now, is why we didn’t tell you. We knew how you’d react, that you’d disapprove, that you’d try to talk us out of it…”

“Now, Vic,” Elyse said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re being a little harsh. The girls are in shock. And they’re understandably hurt…”

“Hurt? Why would they be hurt?”

“They feel left out,” she answered, as if she had any clue as to how we felt. “I don’t know. Maybe weshouldhave waited, had a proper wedding…”

“Wehada proper wedding.”

“To which we weren’t invited,” I said.

“Would you have come if you had been?”

Probably not, I thought. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Iknow,” my father said, his mouth a sneer. “Anyway, what’s done is done. Elyse and I are married now, and I expect you to treat my wife accordingly.”

“Now, Vic,” Elyse said again.

I smiled, wondering how long it would take my father to tire of that particular phrase.

“You’ll have to give your daughters some time to adjust. I was hired to be your housekeeper, not your wife. It’s going to take some getting used to.” She turned her attention back to Tracy and me. “Any more questions?”

“Ask him if they have a prenup,” Tracy urged me under her breath.

“Are those my mother’s rings?” I asked instead.