Mackinac sunsets, p.7
Mackinac Sunsets, page 7
“Elise, I heard you’ve been involved in a bit of drama since your arrival,” Michael said, crossing and uncrossing his arms.
“As if you’re one to talk, Prodigal Son,” Cindy said as she whisked back into the kitchen and dotted a kiss on Michael’s cheek.
“I hope I kick that nickname soon,” Michael said. “But anyway. A fire? At the old Willow Grove?”
“I think that place was always a fire trap,” Tracey said from the dining room. “Alex probably knew it was unsafe, in any case, and he didn’t bother to do anything about it.”
“You should have seen him at the police station just now,” Wayne affirmed. “He looked like his world was ending.”
“Oh, Uncle Alex,” Michael said, scoffing. “The man never liked me so much. He knew I didn’t have much interest in the business side of things. One day, when I told him I wanted to be an artist when I grew up, he actually managed to move sides of the table to be closer to a cousin of mine, who owned a business down in Tampa.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Alex loves you,” Cindy said.
“He’s always had a funny way of showing it,” Wayne affirmed.
Cindy rolled her eyes. “Wayne! You’re of little to no help.”
“Then why’d you invite me?” Wayne asked mischievously. He grabbed a grape from the fruit basket on the counter and plopped a green one on his tongue.
“Is the wine not grape enough for you?” Michael asked him. “You feel like you have to go straight to the source?”
Elise watched with worried eyes as Tracey hustled back into the kitchen to check on whatever was cooking in the oven.
“Can I help with something?” Elise asked.
Tracey waved an oven mitt through the steam as it billowed from the oven itself. She turned a bright smile toward Elise. “I don’t think so, honey. I just hope you brought your appetite. This lasagna isn’t going to eat itself.”
As Tracey pulled out the lasagna, Michael hustled over, made a funny little noise in his throat, then said, “It looks every bit as good as it does in Little Italy, Aunt Tracey.”
Tracey’s jaw dropped as she swatted him with the oven mitt. “You’re just going to drop all these hints about where you’ve been, aren’t you? You’re never going to tell us. You’re just going to allude to this wonderful, magical life.”
“Nothing as magical as our Mackinac Island,” Cindy said. She lifted a hand and unclipped her hair, allowing the tresses to fall beautifully along her neckline. “Even Elise comes from Los Angeles, and she’s extended her trip, day by day, until... Who the heck knows when she’ll leave?”
For the first time, Cindy gave Elise a friendly smile, one that welcomed her, if only slightly, into her family home.
She was still an outsider, but here she was, surrounded by her sisters—what a strange thing.
Tracey, Cindy, Michael, Wayne, and Elise sat together at the long dining table, stationed beneath a large painting Cindy reported she had purchased in France several years before. The painting was rather ugly and nothing to write home about. Elise had always found that funny about expensive things. As long as they had a story, people no longer saw their quality or lack thereof.
“Los Angeles,” Michael said as he plopped several spoonfuls of salad into his salad bowl. “What part?”
“Calabasas,” Elise replied. She lifted her glass of wine as recognition played itself out over his face.
“I know it,” he said. “Although I spent much more time in Silver Lake.”
“Oh! My ex-husband lives there with his new, much younger girlfriend,” Elise said with a funny laugh.
“In Silver Lake? Wow. That doesn’t seem like the kind of place to start over,” Michael said. “I bet he feels really uncomfortable.”
“I think he does,” Elise said. “It’s almost enough to make me feel bad for him. Almost.”
Michael laughed good-naturedly. With every mannerism, every laugh, every flip of his head, Elise found herself falling more and more for this rambunctious man.
A nephew? Was this what it felt like to have a nephew?
“So. Let’s see here,” Tracey said, lifting a hand and counting out on her fingers. “You made references to Little Italy and Los Angeles so far. Both coasts. You must have spent time in the middle, as well.”
Michael gave a half-shrug. “The place is covered in mountains. I couldn’t miss out on those.”
“But darling, what were you doing out there?” Cindy asked. Her eyes reflected both fear and intrigue.
“That’s the thing about having kids, isn’t it?” Elise heard herself say.
Cindy and Tracey both gave her confused yet curious glances—as though they had forgotten she was the type of person they could relate to.
“What do you mean?” Cindy asked.
“They grow up and discover so much more of the world than you knew about,” Elise said. “My daughter, Penny, goes to school at Berkley, and she calls me every few days with brand-new information about, say, whales or the political climate in India or...” Elise shrugged. “She makes me remember how big the world is.”
“It’s both big and so, so small,” Michael said.
“As proven by you both being here, I guess,” Wayne said, eyeing both Elise and Michael.
“Something like that,” Elise said hurriedly.
She didn’t want to force her lovely potential sisters into wanting her in their life.
It wasn’t that simple. Nothing could be.
At that moment, the front door opened. A voice hollered a greeting as a golden retriever hustled down the hallway and entered the dining room. The golden retriever’s face stretched into a beautiful smile as he hustled up toward Wayne and placed his nose on Wayne’s thigh.
“Hey, Buddy,” Wayne muttered as he stroked behind the dog’s ears.
“Is anyone here?” the man called from the foyer.
Elise’s heart stopped its reckless beating.
Why had she been invited there that night?
Why was she there—and Alex wasn’t?
What was this?
“Is anyone here?” Dean Swartz called again.
“Dad, we’re in the dining room!” Cindy called. She then turned harsh eyes toward Michael as she muttered, “Did you invite your grandfather?”
“I don’t see why that’s any kind of problem, Mom,” Michael said. “I’ve been gone for three years, and I want to check in with my grandfather.”
“Yes, but...” Cindy began. “But there’s a lot more at play and...” She turned toward Wayne. “He didn’t mention this. I just thought it would be a nice catch-up dinner. Really casual and...”
At that moment, Dean appeared in the doorway. He wore a thick flannel shirt, and his mustache was curved up higher than normal, as though he had spent a lot of the day twirling and twirling it with his finger.
“Good evening!” he boomed. His eyes turned from Cindy to Tracey before catching Michael. “My only grandson!” he beamed. “You’re back. Get over here and give your grandfather a hug.”
Michael leaped up, hustled forward, and wrapped his arms around his grandfather.
If only you could meet Bradley.
You had another grandson.
And he looked even more like you than Michael did.
“Where the heck have you been, kid?” Dean asked, ruffling Michael’s hair.
“Just around the corner, the whole time,” Michael affirmed.
When Dean released his grandson, his eyes met with Wayne’s before finally settling on Elise. Elise shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She felt like she had been backed into a corner.
“A familiar face,” Dean said as he sat at the other head of the table, opposite from Cindy. “Elise. Good to see you again. How has the Bloomingfeld been treating you?”
“Just fine, thanks,” Elise said.
Her voice quivered ever so slightly. It felt like an earthquake existed only across her tongue.
“Good to hear,” Dean said as he reached for a spatula, ready to serve himself some lasagna. “And Wayne, always good to see you. I assume you introduced Elise to my daughters?”
“Something like that,” Wayne said.
Reality hovered in the air between all of them. All the color drained from Cindy’s cheeks. Michael glanced at all of them with bright eyes as though he was the puppet master and they were his puppets.
“And, Michael, you’ll have to tell us everything about your travels,” Dean continued. “All my life, I’ve wanted to make my way around the world. I’ve wanted to explore. And, my boy, you’ve done it!”
“He could have told us his plans,” Cindy grumbled.
“Maybe that would have taken away from the magic,” Dean returned.
“You’d know all about the magic of doing what you want, wouldn’t you?” Cindy said ominously.
Elise’s stomach flipped twice. She dropped her fork to her plate as Dean furrowed his brow even more.
“What’s that?” Dean asked.
Michael chuckled. “It’s just that we’ve discovered that you weren’t such a stick in the mud all these years. You’re a little bit different than I always thought you were. That’s for sure.”
Dean dropped the spatula and folded his fingers beneath his chin. His eyes found his grandson’s.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said formally.
It sounded as though he and his grandson were brokering a deal.
“Grandpa, don’t freak out,” Michael said. “It’s just that I got the idea to invite you over here because I’m becoming more and more curious about our family. The Swartz family, that is.”
“I see...”
“Imagine my surprise when, after three years away, I find myself with a brand-new Aunt Elise,” Michael said. “So my question to you is this, Grandpa. Who was Elise’s mother, Allison Darby? And why haven’t you mentioned her to any of us, ever, that we have this whole other family member? Did you think your secret would never come to the surface? Did you think you could get away with it?”
Chapter Ten
Michael’s words hung in the air over the table for nearly thirty seconds before anyone dared to say anything else.
“Did you think your secret would never come to the surface? Did you think you could get away with it?”
Elise’s hands shook across her thighs. Dean Swartz’s eyes bore through his grandson’s. Cindy, the nervous sister, leaped up from her chair, grabbed a bottle of wine from the far end of the table, and said, “I don’t see why we have to get into all that right now.”
This broke the spell. Dean cleared his throat, watching as his eldest daughter, Cindy, poured him a hefty glass of Merlot. He lifted the glass to his lips, sipped with his eyes closed, then returned his gaze to Michael.
“Michael. Did you come here to defame me?” he asked. His voice was guarded, somber.
Michael, who had created this setup, hadn’t expected his grandfather to react so calmly. But Dean Swartz was a businessman, a cool and calculated character. He wasn’t the kind to let his long-lost grandson rattle his chains so easily.
Michael’s smile waned. His eyes turned toward Wayne, his father figure and maybe the only person he trusted in the world.
Cindy staggered back into her chair. She then grabbed the spatula from the lasagna platter and asked, “Does anyone want a slice?” But nobody responded to her. Everyone was focused on Dean and Michael, Michael and Dean. Even Elise, the subject of the stand-off, was allowed a moment of calm.
“Because if you think you wish to corner me, pin me down, suggest elements of my life that you could never understand, I could do the very same to you,” Dean Swartz continued.
All the color drained from Michael’s cheeks. He turned his eyes toward his plate. Elise was reminded of when she had caught Bradley drinking underage and had had to corner him and make sure he was all right.
“If you want to play this kind of game, son, then I suggest you keep your head up,” Dean continued. “None of us in this room knew where you were for the past three years. Your mother spent every night gazing out the window, wondering where you might have gone while hoping for a message from you. That message never came. As far as I can tell, you just arrived here suddenly and expected us all to accept you back with love and compassion. That’s very nearly what we’ve managed. But now? Now, I’ve heard enough.”
“Dad, please...”
Cindy’s voice was weak as her father stood.
“The meal looks beautiful, Cindy. Tracey,” Dean said. His eyes scanned across Elise’s for a moment, and his cheek twitched.
He must know in his heart that this was true.
But I didn’t plan this. This wasn’t how it should have gone.
Michael really made a mess of things.
“Dad, I don’t want this to be messed up any more than it already is,” Cindy whispered. “Please, I don’t want him to go...”
“And that’s another thing,” Dean said. “We shouldn’t have to live in some kind of strange, fearful environment, never knowing if you’ll march out the door again, never to call or write or...” He shook his head with disdain. “We’ve given you everything, Michael.”
Michael’s eyes were hard. “I’m not going to leave, Mom. You don’t have to be afraid of that.”
Cindy’s eyes glowed with sadness.
“But this whole, ‘we’ve given you everything, Michael’ mentality is a lot of the reason I kissed this island goodbye for so long,” Michael continued.
Dean scoffed. He turned his head back toward the foyer and said, “I don’t have the patience for this.”
He hustled toward the foyer, his golden retriever leaping after him. Cindy placed her face in her hands. Wayne tilted his head and glared at Michael, then mouthed, “You really couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
Michael’s lower lip quivered. Tracey stared down at her plate.
And Elise watched as her father marched the rest of the way toward the front door, yanked the door handle open, then disappeared into the night.
“Wait!” she cried suddenly.
Nobody had the reflex to stop her. She whipped down the long hallway and then paused in the doorway, panting, as Dean Swartz peered at her. His face echoed back his curiosity and his anger.
“I just wanted you to know that I didn’t plan for this,” Elise gasped. “I didn’t know Michael planned this dinner, for one, but for two...” She bit hard on her lower lip, genuinely at a loss. “For two, I never wanted to cause you any pain. I just wanted answers. I wanted to understand this huge shadow that had hung over my life since my birth.”
Dean held her eyes for a long time. Elise remembered the diary—how her mother had described feeling weak at the knees whenever she and Dean made eye contact.
He was unlike any man I’d ever known.
“Sometimes, the truth is too hard to look at,” Dean told her. “Sometimes, it’s better left alone.”
With that, he whipped around and stomped down the little walkway and back out toward the road. Elise gripped the doorknob and wavered on wimpy knees. Her eyes were wet with tears.
Suddenly, a hand crept over her shoulder. Elise nearly jumped out of her skin as she had forgotten that anyone else still lingered inside. When she turned back, she blinked wide eyes at both Cindy and Tracey. Toward the back of the house, Wayne and Michael held plates of lasagna and beers and headed toward the back porch.
Elise let her shoulders fall forward. She pressed a hand on her cheek, embarrassed.
“I think I just lost control of myself,” she said.
Tracey and Cindy nodded. “It obviously runs in the family.”
Elise laughed in spite of it all. “I really wouldn’t have wanted to ambush him like that. I tried to explain what I knew at his house when he invited me for dinner, but it just didn’t come naturally. I can’t imagine what it’s like for him. Faced with me, a ghost...”
Tracey heaved a sigh. “Why don’t we head back in? Eat up, drink some wine, and chat for a bit?”
Cindy nodded and slipped a strand of blond hair behind her ear. Since their first meeting, Cindy hadn’t been the kindest to Elise. Elise could understand why. The woman had discovered Elise’s existence around the same time her only son had returned to the island after years away.
There was a lot on her plate.
Elise, Cindy, and Tracey sat around the beautifully set table. Wayne’s and Michael’s voices were murmurs just outside the window. Elise couldn’t make out anything they said.
Their plates were loaded with gooey lasagna, the ricotta oozing out across the china, the salad piled high in little salad bowls, the garlic bread glittering with butter and garlic and salt. Cindy eyed Elise for a long time, then gestured as she said, “Are you going to eat with us?”
Elise chuckled. “I thought I’d lost my appetite. But this looks delicious.” She stabbed a fork across the top layer of the noodle stack. “I swear, I’ve eaten better on Mackinac Island than I have in years.”
“We’re preparing for winter,” Tracey said with a wink. “If you stick around much longer, we’ll bring out the really good stuff.”
“That’s right—beef stews. Schnitzels,” Cindy said.
“Pies and cakes and cookies...” Tracey said.
“And don’t forget the fudge. I assume you’ve had some Mackinac fudge?” Cindy asked.
“Just a little,” Elise admitted.
“You haven’t lived, my dear,” Tracey said.
“That’s kind of why I’m here, I guess,” Elise affirmed with a light shrug. “After all those years of school and kids and work, work, work...”
“You really have to tell us what you’re working on,” Cindy said contemplatively. “Everyone’s talking about it. Some screenplay about the island.”
Elise’s cheeks grew crimson. She lifted her glass of wine and swirled around the dark red liquid, feeling almost mesmerized by it.
Tracey chuckled. “You’re like us.”
“What do you mean?” Elise looked up at her feeling surprised at the sentiment.
“You don’t like to brag about what you do,” Trace continued. “Not like Alex. You’re like me and Cindy and Dad. We like to keep our success to ourselves. But it doesn’t mean we’re not proud of all we’ve done.”
