“Why not?” Nick asked.
“Cissy doesn’t want to hear it.” Eugenia forced a smile and reached for her glass of wine.
“That’s right, I don’t.”
“I think it’s a good thing they’re coming by,” Nick said, leaning back in his chair, his eyes a darker blue in the dimmed light. “Maybe it’ll clear the air.”
Alex scowled and shook his head. “It’ll just be trouble. It always is. Even after I tried to help Cherise’s husband out and gave him the job down at Cahill House—”
“Well, that’s water under the bridge,” Eugenia said frostily, and Alex scowled.
“Right.”
Nick shoved his plate aside; looked as if he wanted to bolt from the room as the tense seconds ticked by. Marla set down her spoon and decided this was as good a time as any to make her request. “As soon as the wires are off, I’d like to visit my dad,” she announced.
Eugenia was pronging some potato with her fork. She didn’t flinch, but Alex’s head snapped up. His gaze narrowed on her. “Conrad? Why?”
“He’s my father for one thing. And it might help. For me to remember. I—I understand he’s very ill.”
“That’s true and I’d love to take the family over to Tiburon to see him. Especially the baby. But I have to think of the poor guy.” Alex shoved his plate aside, leaned his elbows on the table and rested his chin upon his knuckles. “What would it do to him, to see you this way?”
She caught a glimpse of her image in the cut glass over the sideboard, but she didn’t cringe. She was healing. The bruises were fading, the swelling diminishing, her hair neat in the candlelight. “I think . . . I think he would be relieved to see that I was all right.”
Eugenia washed down a small piece of prime rib with a swallow of wine. “I guess I could run over to Tiburon. Not this week, I’m afraid. I’ve got errands and meetings but maybe next . . .”
“I could probably go on my own,” Marla said, sick of being treated like an invalid. She was beginning to think of this house as some kind of glamorous prison, which, of course, was ridiculous. But she wanted to see her father alone, without the trappings of the family.
“You can’t drive,” Alex reminded her.
“Why not?”
“The Porsche’s in the shop for one thing and you’ve been in a coma—”
“And I’m not anymore. There’s no reason to bother your mother with my errands. Or for you to make a special trip with me. He is, after all, my father.” It was all Marla could do to hang on to her patience. Beneath the veneer of civility, the soft music, flickering candles and polished silver in this huge looming house, there was a thick, inescapable tension, secrets hidden in the dark corners. “And if driving is the issue, then Lars could take me.” That thought wasn’t particularly pleasant but she didn’t care. And she felt the need to see her father and she needed to see him alone.
“It’s no bother,” her mother-in-law assured her with the patient smile that was beginning to grate on Marla’s nerves.
Since subtlety wasn’t working, she decided to be more direct. “Look, I need answers. I want to be well so that I can remember . . . all of you . . . everything and it’s time I became independent. I’d like to see my friends, go to the club, and as soon as the wires are off, out to lunch.” She watched for a reaction and Eugenia, cutting her prime rib, only elevated her eyebrows a fraction over her glasses. Alex tossed his napkin onto the table.
“Of course you do. As soon as Phil gives his okay, then you can do whatever you want. Besides, didn’t Joanna come by and visit the other day?”
“Yes, but I didn’t remember her.” Marla looked from one face to another as Cissy reached for her water glass again and Nick didn’t say a word. “Now, wait a minute. Am I under some doctor’s orders to remain housebound?”
Eugenia sighed and adjusted her fork and knife on the edge of her plate. “Dr. Robertson just wants to make sure that you’re up to any activities. And then there’s your memory loss to consider—”
“I’ve considered it and I’m sick to death of it,” she said, surprised at her own vehemence. “I think seeing other people, getting out of the house, reacquainting myself with some of my usual haunts, finding some stimulation might just trigger something, and I might remember.” More than anything, she wanted to know more about herself. Her life. Her family. Why did she feel like such an outsider?
“I’ll talk to Phil tomorrow,” Alex promised as if that were the end of it.
She nearly shot to her feet. Instead she grabbed the edge of the table and forced her voice to remain calm. “No, I’ll talk to him. I think it’s time I did some things for myself.”
There was a moment of tense silence, then Alex laughed. “Bravo!” he mocked with sarcastic enthusiasm. He clapped his hands as if he were at a tennis match. “That’s the spirit! Now that’s the Marla I remember!”
Eugenia frowned. Nick leaned back in his chair. Cissy rolled her eyes expressively.
“Why don’t you call him in the morning?” Alex suggested.
“I will,” she said, wondering why she’d thought even for a second that her husband was trying to somehow hide her from the world. No, not hide her, but coddle her, treat her like some kind of porcelain doll that he thought might break. Or crack. As if she were fragile.