Family Reunion by Nancy Thayer (ereader ebook .txt) 📕

posture. I couldn’t even seem to breathe correctly for her. She was mean. She made me feel trapped. I wanted to be a happy mother, a friend to you. I went through my life feeling like a disappointment to my mother. I wanted you to enjoy being with me.”

Alicia wiped her face and calmed down. “You must have hated it when I loved Phillip’s mother so much.”

“I did,” Eleanor said. “I still do.”

“I’m going to make some cocoa,” Ari said. She wanted to leave the room to let her mother and grandmother have some privacy, and because she needed to think her own thoughts. This would not be a good time to tell her mother she was pregnant.

But when she returned to the kitchen, she found that her mother’s emotions had moved from sorrow to anger.

“Who is she?” Alicia asked Eleanor. “Is she an island girl?”

“We don’t know who she is,” Eleanor told her daughter. “She has a blue convertible. She lives on Dionis Beach Road.”

Alicia whipped around to face Ari. “You saw her. Who is she?”

“Mom, I don’t know her name. She’s young, not as young as I am, but young—”

“Younger than I am, right?” Alicia ignored the cocoa. She rose and stalked over to the window, looking out at the sea and the gray sky.

Ari set the tray of cocoa on the coffee table. Eleanor gave Ari a slight nod as she took her mug. They had done what was necessary, and it was terrible. But they weren’t the ones who had betrayed Alicia.

“Maybe you should call him, Mom,” Ari suggested. “Maybe call and tell him you’re on the island and you’d like to see him.”

When Alicia turned from the window, her face was composed again, although her carefully blushed cheeks were tracked with tears. She was quieter now, and somehow shut off, somehow emotionally shielded. She returned to the sofa, picked up her cocoa, and sipped.

Ari and her grandmother waited.

“I’m not going to call him,” Alicia announced. “I’m going on a trip.”

“What?” Ari asked.

“Where?” Eleanor asked.

“I don’t have to tell you.” Alicia had regained her poise and slipped into her Queen of England mode. “I’m going on a fabulous trip. I’m going first-class. I’ll be gone for weeks.”

“Mom,” Ari began.

Alicia arched an eyebrow and sweetened her voice, which meant she was totally furious. “Why shouldn’t I go on a trip? My own mother won’t discuss selling this rattrap of a house so that I can enjoy life. No, she sits here with millions spread around her and doesn’t think of me. My husband is enjoying life with another woman and my daughter prefers to live with her grandmother. Where am I in this family? Who respects me? Who cares for me?”

“My darling,” Eleanor said quietly, “don’t make any quick decisions that you’ll regret.”

“Why not?” Alicia asked. “Everyone else does.”

“Mom,” Ari cried. “We love you!”

“I don’t want to be with you,” Alicia replied. “I don’t want to be with any of you.”

Ari was shocked. “But what if there’s an emergency?”

“You’re an adult,” Alicia said coldly. “I’m going to use the bathroom and then I’ll call a taxi.” She went out of the living room and down the hall.

“Wow. I didn’t see that coming,” Ari said to her grandmother.

Eleanor smiled. “I didn’t, either. But you know, I hope she goes through with this plan. It will do her a world of good and give Phillip the slap in the face he deserves.”

“But what about me?” Ari whispered.

“How helpful do you think your mother would be, especially now?” Eleanor asked gently.

Ari smiled ruefully. “She wouldn’t greet my news with cries of joy.”

“Nor would she be delighted to know she would be called ‘Gram.’ ”

Ari closed her eyes and leaned back against the sofa. It was almost a pleasure to focus on her father’s affair. It took her mind off her own problem. She wasn’t prepared to be a mother yet, not emotionally or practically. For a moment, she thought she was going to throw up again, right in the living room.

“Hey-ho!” a man called. The screen door slammed shut and Cliff strode into the living room. In his tennis whites, his skin tanned and blushed from the sun, his shoulders wide, his smile brilliant, he looked like the very model of a healthy, happy man.

“Uncle Cliff!” Ari said, shocked.

“Cliff? What are you doing here?” Eleanor asked.

Cliff looked affronted. “Excuse me. Do I have the wrong house? You do resemble my mother. I usually stop by on the weekends.”

“Uncle Cliff,” Ari cried, “we’ve got a terrible problem.”

“Really?” Cliff asked, eyebrows arched.

Alicia returned to the living room. Her face was again perfectly blushed, her mascara darkened. “What are you doing here?” she asked Cliff.

“What are you doing here?” Cliff shot back. “Where’s Phillip?”

“Probably with his girlfriend,” Alicia said.

“What?” Cliff asked.

“My father’s been seeing a woman on the island,” Ari told him quietly.

“You mean, like playing tennis?”

“No,” Alicia said. “They’ve seen him go into her house.”

“Have you called him?” Cliff asked.

“Why, no,” Alicia said sarcastically. “That never occurred to me.” Her shoulders slumped. “Whenever I have tried to call Phillip, I only get voicemail. I haven’t seen much of him this summer. He said he was working.”

Cliff’s pose of hail-fellow-well-met evaporated. He went pale. “That jerk!” Blinking, he looked at Ari and at his mother and back at Alicia. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going on a trip,” Alicia said. She was beginning to cry again.

Ari wept, too. Her mother hated being embarrassed. She always tried to look perfect, and now she stood before them shaking, with tears running down her cheeks, streaking her mascara, her shoulders slumped, nearly falling to the floor in her misery. Ari started to go to her mother, to hug her.

Cliff crossed the room. He pulled his sister to him, hugging her tightly, her face nestled against his chest, as if protecting her from the rest of the world.

“You know, Leeci,” he murmured, “it’s not the end of the world. Men do stupid things like this all the