Chapter 2: The Missing Meal
The upstairs hallway smelled of bleach and expensive potpourri, a sterile combination that never quite masked the smell of old money rotting from the inside out. I carried Mia down the wide corridor toward the east wing, her head lolling gently against my chest with every measured step I took. Through the half-open mahogany door of the upstairs study, a sharp shaft of golden light cut across the dark Persian runner. Tina was standing by the mahogany desk, her phone pressed hard against her ear, her blonde hair pulled back into a severe, perfect twist that defied a single stray hair. She wore a crisp white silk blouse tucked immaculately into beige wool trousers, her entire silhouette a masterclass in aggressive competence.
As I shifted Mia’s weight in my arms, the floorboard groaned beneath my boots. Tina turned her head sharply, her pale blue eyes narrowing as she took in the sight of us standing in the doorway like unwanted ghosts. She lowered the phone without ending the call, pressing her thumb over the mouthpiece with an audible sigh of exasperation that telegraphed years of accumulated resentment.
"Must you carry her around like an invalid?" Tina asked, her voice dropping into that clipped, upper-class register designed to make you feel like an unruly employee in your own home. "She's five, Liam, not porcelain. If you put her down in her own bed, she might actually develop some backbone."
I stopped in the doorway, letting my shoulder lean against the jamb. "She has a fever, Tina. Her temperature spiked right after the candles were brought out."
Tina rolled her eyes, finally dropping the phone to her side and letting out a sharp breath of air. "She missed one meal, stop making a scene. Mother and Father are downstairs trying to maintain what little dignity this family has left after your little excursion into early retirement, and you’re wandering the halls playing tragic single father."
Mia stirred against my chest, her eyelids fluttering open by a fraction of an inch. The room seemed to tilt slightly as the fluorescent hum of the study lights caught the edge of her vision. Her small hand groped blindly for the collar of my black polo, fingers curling into the cotton until her knuckles turned white.
"Daddy," Mia whispered, her voice barely a dry rasp that scratched against my heart. "Is Aunt Tina angry?"
I looked past my sister, staring at the cold, symmetrical lines of the bookshelves behind her—rows of leather-bound volumes that nobody had opened in twenty years. The irony of our upbringing was that we had everything except a reason to stay in the same room. I brought my hand up to support Mia's head, my tattooed fingers splaying across the back of her blonde hair, feeling the damp heat radiating from her scalp.
"She missed one meal, stop making a scene," I said softly, repeating the phrase not to my sister, but down into Mia's hair, a quiet anchor to keep her from drifting too far away.
Tina’s face tightened, a vertical line appearing between her perfectly plucked eyebrows. "Don't quote me back to myself like some insolent child. You’ve been hiding in this fortress for three years, Liam, acting as if the world outside is still hunting you. Well, nobody cares about your past anymore. You're just a ghost living in our parents' guest house, dragging that child down with your constant paranoia."
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"You don't know what's outside those gates," I said, my voice completely level, stripped of all defensive heat. "And neither do you, Tina, because you've never looked past the windshield of a chauffeured town car."
Tina stepped forward, her heels clicking sharply against the hardwood. "Get her to bed, Liam. And for God's sake, change out of those black shirts. You look like you're heading to a clandestine meeting every time you walk down the stairs."
