Summer returned on a wave of heat that made the pale stone deck shimmer. Eleanor’s sixty-sixth birthday was smaller—Denise, Carole, two cousins, Harrison and Sloan. No linen gift table near the pool’s edge. The gifts stayed inside on the dining table. Nobody bumped anything. Marcus brought the baby, now walking, and the baby put a wet hand on Eleanor’s knee and laughed as if knees were a discovery. Late in the afternoon Eleanor stood at the pool with a glass of iced tea and watched the light move on the water and felt, not triumph, not vindication, but a settledness that was kin to peace.
Sloan came to stand beside her, careful with the distance. “Harrison told me about Aunt Ruth,” she said quietly. “The envelope.”
Eleanor’s throat tightened once, then eased. “He wasn’t supposed to know the number. He was supposed to know the lesson.”
“He knows both now,” Sloan said. “He’s been… different. We both have. Therapy. Boring word. Useful thing.”
Eleanor glanced at her. “You still get smug?”
Sloan’s mouth twitched. “On Tuesdays. I’m working on Wednesdays.”