“You must be going through a hard time now, with Jeff gone,” said Robbie.
“Yeah, it’s not been an easy couple of days. But we’ll get through, it, won’t we?”
And then suddenly, before she could stop him, he leaned in and kissed her!
Immediately she pulled back.“Don’t do that!” she blurted out.
“I-I’m sorry,” he said, his cheeks coloring brightly. “It’s just that… with Jeff gone, I just figured…”
“That you and I would get back together? If you really thought that, you’re delusional, Robbie. We’re never getting back together, all right? Never.”
And she walked off, feeling both annoyed and upset. But as she entered the house, she felt that maybe she had been too harsh on him. Then again, he needed to get the message that they were never going to be a couple. And if he kept trying, things were going to get really uncomfortable for the both of them.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]
Larry had witnessed the scene from his office window, and his heart sank. He watched as his son kicked a rock so hard it almost hit Steph’s car, then shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and walked off in the direction of the vineyard. Clearly Robbie wasn’t okay. This hang-up about Steph was in his system, and was poisoning him inside. It was affecting his work and everyone around him. This couldn’t go on. And so he vowed to have a long talk with his son that night. If Robbie didn’t change his ways and drop this obsession with Steph Stewart, measures would have to be taken. A solution reached—a permanent one.
And frankly he already dreaded the kind of solution he had in mind.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]
Steph had entered the house and when she heard voices in the living room, found her parents and Jeff’s parents sitting together, looking through old photo albums of Steph and Kevin. They looked up when she entered, and both parent pairs seemed relieved to see her, as if letting her out of their sight for even half an hour caused them to worry, which she was sure they did.
“Did you find Kevin?” asked her mother.
“No, I didn’t,” she lied, though not very convincingly, she felt. Kevin had always been the liar in the family, not she.
“We were talking about the memorial service,” Pauline explained, “and so we started thinking about pictures to put on the invitations, but then looking at these I guess we got distracted. You never told us you were such a cute baby, Steph.”
“It’s not something you casually drop into the conversation,” she said as she glanced at a picture of her and Kevin playing with a toy car. Kevin looked infinitely more fascinated by the thing than she did. Possibly she had been hoping for a Barbie doll instead of a stupid car. “I have somenice pictures of Jeff,” she said. “They’re on my phone, but I can send them to the printer.”
“I also have many, many pictures of Jeff,” said Pauline. “Not on my phone, but at home. I told you we should have brought them,” she told her husband.
“I didn’t think we’d need them,” said David. “And anyway, I think we should pick a picture of Jeff how we want to remember him—which is how he looked now.” His face crumpled up like a used tissue, and Pauline placed her hand on his arm. “I’m fine,” he assured his wife, though they could all see that he wasn’t.
“I think you should do a speech,” said Pauline now.
“I can’t,” said her husband. “Please don’t ask me because I just can’t.”
Steph was concerned about her father-in-law. For a man who’d been giving speeches all his life, and who was a shoo-in for the job of mayor of Paris, and perhaps even higher office down the line, he was only a shadow of the man he used to be. Grief had hit him hard—even harder than Pauline, though maybe she was simply not allowing it to overwhelm her, the way it overwhelmed David.
“It’s fine, David,” said Dad gently. “You don’t have to do a speech if you don’t want to.”
“I just want to take my boy home,” said David brokenly. “Bury him in the family plot.”
“And you will,” Dad assured him. “We just have to get through these next couple of days, that’s all. I promise you that it will get easier.”
David gratefully accepted a tissue from Mom, and wiped his nose. Just then, Mom’s phone dinged, and for a few moments she was frowning at the device, then got busy responding to whoever was messaging her. Probably something to do with the business, Steph thought.
But then Mom looked up, and glanced at her in a searching way for a moment, before getting back to the message she was typing.