The Winters(29)

Max gave me a squeeze. “Who are the Dems putting forward, do we know yet?”

“Guy named Tom Armstrong,” Jonah said. “Sells trucks out on the bypass. County executive in the nineties. Man of the people, blah, blah, blah.” Jonah looked at me now. “Bet you didn’t bargain on hitting the hustings when you left paradise.”

“We haven’t really talked about it,” I answered, glancing sideways at Max. “We haven’t talked about a lot of things.”

Louisa pointed to her watch. “Husband, let us be off.”

“You’re not staying for lunch?” I asked, conscious of sounding needy. I had hoped Louisa would be around when Dani finally came downstairs so I could take notes on how she handled her.

“Two meals in a row will put Max and me over our limit,” she said. “We love each other, but we don’t really like each other that much.”

“Elias?” I asked.

“No. I’m only dragging work here because you kept Max away for so long. But I swear, from now on, work talk only at the office.”

Before they left, Louisa promised to take me around East Hampton, to shop for a few more things and introduce me to some of their friends. “We can surprise those two at the constituency office. See if they’re really working,” she said. She lowered her voice. “And don’t let that little brat steamroll over you. You’re the grown-up, she’s the kid. Remember that.”

Max and I stood shivering at the front door, waving away both cars. When we turned around, there stood Dani, barefoot, wearing shorts, her belly exposed in the winter. She was chomping on a celery stick. I jumped.

“Whoa, take a Xannie,” she said.

“Good morn—I mean afternoon,” Max said.

“Auntie Louisa pissed at me?”

“Well, she said she doesn’t want to take you to Paris anymore.”

She shrugged. “Oh well. Paris is boring anyway.”

“Will you deign to join us at lunch?”

I regarded her anew, my eyes drawn to her hair, the thin line of dark roots growing in, the faded pencil reimagining her brows. She seemed to be wearing yesterday’s makeup.

“I already ate. Gus is going to drive me over to Claire’s.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know. Go tobogganing?”

“That sounds like fun,” I said.

She gave me a tight smile. “Yeah. And after that we’re going to set our hair in rollers and then make crank calls to boys.” She headed back up the stairs.

“Dani,” Max called after her, watching her take the steps in twos. “Come here, please!”

She kept on climbing.

“I have to nip this in the bud,” he said, about to follow her.

I grabbed his arm. “Leave her, Max,” I said, with confidence I attributed to Louisa’s parting advice.

“All she’s done is snark around you.”

“It’s day two. Let her take her space.”

“I also want to talk to her about Rebekah’s photos. She can put them in an album or something, but they have to go in storage.”

“They don’t bother me. It’s her mother. She probably misses her even more now that I’m here.”

He placed his hands on both of my cheeks and held my face, tilting my head slightly this way and that, examining my eyes, my angles. “Who are you, oh little wise one, and what have you done with that innocent young woman I met under the sun last month?”

“I do want to talk to you about something.”

“Uh-oh. What did I do—except ruin your entire life by bringing you here?”

I grabbed his hand and led him back to the study, quietly shutting the door behind us.

“What is on that mind of yours?”

I inhaled deeply. “Max, why didn’t you tell me Dani was adopted?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “I’m sure I mentioned it.”

“I’d remember that.”

He put his head down as though looking for something on the floor. Then he looked up. “Is this bothering you?”

“No. I always assumed, with time, we’d fill in certain details about each other’s lives. But this feels like a big omission.”

“You think I deliberately failed to mention my daughter was adopted? For what purpose would I hide this information from you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought I’d mentioned it. If I haven’t, maybe it’s because it rarely crosses my mind. I think of her as my own, so much so I sometimes forget she was once someone else’s.”

“That’s what Louisa said.”

“Well, she’s right. This isn’t a secret. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. You can find it on Google if you search far back enough. But why is this troubling you? Is it a problem?”

“My God, no,” I said, and sank into an armchair. I landed on what I always say when I feel more embarrassed than indignant. “I’m sorry, Max.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said. He stepped over to one of the French windows as a vehicle pulled up in the drive. We watched Dani hop into a small truck, and the wheels crunched snow as they took off.