Swink (Landry Family 5)

“Nothing.”

He chuckles as we stop walking. I look up into his face, a mixture of my brothers. His hair has some grey to it now and the lines in his face are deeper and heavier.

“You are just like your mother.”

“How do you figure?” I grin.

He doesn’t answer, just laughs. “Speaking of which, here comes the devil.”

Our mother arrives and my father kisses her on the cheek. He whispers something in her ear and takes off across the room toward Graham.

“This turned out excellent, don’t you think?” she asks, surveying the room.

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

“What’s wrong, dear?”

“It’s been a long week,” I admit. “And then I just had Barron Monroe come up to me and . . . let’s say I said everything I wanted to say with a smile.”

“As long as you maintained the smile,” she winks. “How are things with you? You know your siblings talk . . .”

“Too much,” I sigh. “I guess you know about Dominic.”

“I’d love to meet him.”

I look at her and force a swallow. “I know Paulina and Raquel saw us at lunch the other day, and according to Graham, didn’t say very nice things about him.”

She considers her words, looking anywhere but at me while she does it. Finally, after I’m about ready to burst into tears, she focuses on me. “We live in a very idyllic world, Camilla Jane. We are blessed that we can avoid a lot of common struggles in life. Now, I could go on and on about why that’s true, about how hard our families have worked and planned and saved, but I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“No, it’s not. I get it,” I say, thinking back to all the ways those things were reiterated to us growing up.

“It’s very easy,” Mom continues, “to forget what it’s like for other people. When we are sitting in a beautiful home, wearing expensive clothes, eating whatever we’d like, it’s easy to look at those struggling in different ways—because we all struggle, Camilla, and pass judgement.”

“I think your friends pass judgement incredibly easy.”

“That they do,” she sighs. “They’re spared in a lot of ways by the exclusivity of our world. If Paulina or Raquel had to wear their sins and mistakes on their clothes, sort of like the way Dominic may display some of the things in his life unwittingly, let’s just say they’d be a lot less judge-y.”

My bottom lip trembles and I let her pull me into a tight embrace.

“I told both of them that. I explained that if you were happy and healthy and he treated you right, I couldn’t care less about anything else. We then had a quiet conversation about how I’m more concerned about you not sporting black eyes than I am about you wearing diamonds.” She pulls away and wipes away a fallen tear from my cheek. “Don’t spend a minute worrying about them, Camilla. They were probably jealous, if I can read between the lines.”

Giggling, I dab beneath my eyes and breathe a little easier than I have for a while.

“Can I meet him?” she asks.

“That’s probably not going to happen too soon. He and Graham aren’t really seeing eye-to-eye, although I think they’ve called a truce.”

She places her hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye. “I raised your brothers to be the men they are. I’m proud of them. Immensely. But sometimes they can get a little . . .”

“Overbearing?”

“Yes. Probably so.” She takes her hand away and plays with her pearls. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I’ve told each of your siblings when they’ve come to me for advice. As long as you’re happy, we’ll adapt. And if you are happy, if you can’t imagine them never lighting up your phone again, you need to hold on to that. It’s precious.”

“It’s not that easy with him,” I voice. “He doesn’t feel comfortable in places like this. So much of what I do, he doesn’t want a part of. And he doesn’t want me to be a part of his either.”

“Sounds like your father,” she laughs.

“Daddy? How?”