The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (16)
Mrs. Holbeck gives me a contained smile. “Poor Lila, such long hours. What with work and little Milo and her charities it’s a wonder she’s still standing.” It’s unclear if this is a compliment or a sugarcoated criticism. “Well, it’s just nice to have the whole family together for once,” she continues. “We all have such busy lives these days.”
As if on cue another member of the Holbeck family ambles in through the dining room doorway, the family resemblance unmistakable. I’d put him in his mid-forties, so I’m momentarily thrown as to who he could be. Too old for a younger brother, too young for a father. Edward is meant to be the eldest at only thirty-eight. The new arrival is a bear of a man, bigger and stockier than Edward, with an imposing footballer’s physique.
“There he is. Oliver,” Mrs. Holbeck coos. “Oliver, this is Edward’s Harriet.”
Edward’s Harriet. The words are loaded, but again it’s hard to tell with what exactly.
Oliver raises an eyebrow in mild surprise as his eyes find mine. I’m not what he expected, clearly, but then neither is he. Oliver Holbeck, the third child, is supposed to be four years younger than Edward but looks half a decade older. Gray peppers his stubble and temples. And then as if in answer to my unspoken question I hear the crescendoing shrieks of children as Oliver and Fiona’s three young boys hurtle into the room, drawing up short at the sight of me. Three little sets of eyes join those already on me.
Having three young sons certainly might explain the apparent age differential between Oliver and the rest of the Holbeck siblings, although looking back at Fiona, the same can’t really be said of her. Perhaps it’s that the Holbeck family business has taken its toll.
“Wonderful to finally meet you, Harriet,” Oliver says, his voice deeper than Edward’s, with an almost transatlantic, New Hampshire lilt to it, like Eleanor’s. Edward doesn’t have that. Perhaps New York beat it out of him. Oliver’s greeting sounds genuine, heartfelt. I see something in Edward shift. Oliver must be important to him, his support valued but not taken for granted.
Edward moves to pull his younger brother into a tight bear hug, and Oliver reciprocates, his arms fully enveloping Edward’s taller frame. “There he is,” Oliver chuckles, the two slapping each other’s backs. “Big bro’s back.”
Watching them it’s clear that tonight is as much a reunion for the family as it is an introduction to me. I find myself wondering if Oliver ever begrudged having to take on Edward’s mantle, if he wanted a different life or if he cannot believe his luck from one day to the next.
When the brothers pull apart Edward greets the young boys, ruffling his eldest nephew’s hair, the boy dodging away and causing the whole group to dart off in different directions.
“Stay close, boys,” Oliver booms after them. “No running, no shouting. Stay away from Granddad’s study. Dinner in twenty.”
“And where is Dad?” Edward asks, turning back to the room in general. Odd to think that anyone could refer to a man like Robert Davison Holbeck as Dad, or Granddad for that matter, but I suppose they have to call him something.
“Call,” Matilda responds, absentmindedly twisting her braceleted wrist into a telephone gesture.
“And he shall appear,” a resonant voice intones from the doorway. I catch Edward tensing at the sound of it before turning to take in the tall, brooding frame of his father standing, scotch in hand, in the doorway.
I feel my expression freeze in place as I take him in for the first time, a strange sensation fizzling through me. It’s undeniable—his questionable past and ethics aside—and as much as I would never admit this to another living soul, there is something overpoweringly attractive about him. I hate myself for thinking it, but there it is. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Of course I’ve seen him before in magazines and on newspaper stands, but in the flesh, the resemblance between him and Edward knocks the breath from me. Though clearly older, Robert Holbeck looks almost exactly like the man I’ve agreed to marry. Edward’s looks, his rakish smile, the knowing behind his eyes, are as present in the father as in the son but somehow, unsettlingly, more so. More present, more dangerous, more elusive.
Robert Holbeck’s eyes find mine, the deep brown of them eerily similar to eyes I have stared into for over a year, but these eyes are filled with a different history, an unknown past I will almost certainly not be given access to.
I feel the heat rise in my face.
Of all of the reactions I thought I might have on meeting my father-in-law, sexual attraction is not one I would have ever considered being a problem. I suppose I could blame my hormones: I am pregnant after all. If ever there was an excuse. Perhaps R. D. Holbeck is my own personal version of craving a jar of pickles in the middle of the night. If pickles were incredibly powerful billionaires.
Robert releases me from the hold of his gaze, his eyes gliding back to Edward.
“Edward,” he says. There’s a careful humility to it, an offering not of peace so much as acceptance that some things must be taken as they are in life.
“Dad.” Edward nods and I feel an infinitesimal tightening of his hand around mine, the fully grown man beside me thrust unwittingly back into the role of son.
Eleanor deftly breaks the weight of the moment. “R.D., this is Edward’s Harriet,” she coos.