Page 39 of Share with Me

Chapter Fourteen

Brinley’s plan togo back to bed was dashed when she arrived home to a dissonance of voices coming from the sunroom. Mom and Dad were at it again over Zoe’s elopement and pregnancy.

Brinley had parked the Bugatti in the three-car garage of the main house, where she always parked when she was in town. But now she wondered if the garage door opening and closing had alerted her parents to her being home.

She closed the door to the garage quietly, took off her Keen boots, and tiptoed down the hallway to staccato pitches and fits and repeated emphases of the words “your daughter” and “reckless.”

Somehow the daughter committing the crime was always the other’s offspring and the daughter getting the accolades was one’s own.

“Brin, get in here!”

Mom.

Brinley hadn’t even reached the double doors to the sunroom that she must pass to get to the stairs up to the library, where she had hoped to catch a few more hours of sleep. She counted to eleven, maybe twelve, and braced herself. Really, she didn’t want to be dragged into Zoe’s affairs and her parents knew it. Ironically, her neutrality had caused her to be summoned many times to arbitrate disputes in the family.

Slowly, she dragged herself to the sunroom. Her parents were sitting adjacent to each other in a couple of armchairs facing her. Behind them a row of windows separated them from the brown bushes in the yard lining up like tumbleweeds. They had been cut down some time in the fall, but left to sit through the winter. Somewhere out there the distant surf peppered the quiet morning under the sun now midway up the sky.

“If it’s about Zoe, keep me out of it.” Standing under the tall doorframe, she looked helpless with nowhere to hide.

“It’s not about Zoe,” Dad said. “We’re turning all this over to the lawyers. What did Toby say?”

“I was going to tell you later after you two finished fighting.” Brinley stifled a laugh. “He’s fine. The floors are fine. The entire house is gorgeous. If I were living here, that’s the kind of house I would live in.”

“Seriously?” Dad asked.

“I mean what’s not to like? The second floor master has a balcony that overlooks the ocean, the living room opens up to a covered porch that connects to a boardwalk taking you to the beach. It’s a nice retreat.”

“Make me an offer, Brinley Brin.”

“What?”

“Make me an offer before I list it. I don’t want a bidding war.”

Brinley put down her boots next to the armchair closest to her, poured herself some Kona coffee from the carafe on the antique butler tray table, and sat down thinking about that house.

“Let me call my agent,” Brinley said. “Do some comps.”

“Good answer.”

“Well, I don’t want to pay you more than the house is worth.” Brinley sipped more coffee.

“That’s my girl.”

Brinley watched Dad and Mom look at each other and then back at her.

“You tell her,” Dad said to Mom.

“Tell me what, Mom?” Brinley asked. “You’re pregnant too?”

Dad spewed coffee out his mouth.

“Ned! Don’t be melodramatic.” Mom nudged him. “Well, we’re going to Paris for a week and then we’ll be back Christmas Eve.”

“Didn’t you just go to Paris last month?”

“Yes, but we’re going to help Zoe settle into her new house and shop for the baby.”

“The baby? Zoe’s baby? Don’t they have stores in the United States?”

---