“Christ. Sorry.”
“It’s all rented.”
“In that case, buy some furniture.” He pointed the pizza at Winston, his mouth stern. “And stop worrying about your daughter. You’re not dead yet. She’s here in your place, showing up to see her uncle, being your daughter. She doesn’t hate you, so you must be doing something right. You’ve got time to figure this shit out.”
The front door opened and Allie came in, a blur of red and gold sparkles, and he felt the lift in him, just looking at her in her costume, her wild beauty and her small, worried face.
The anxious weight of her expression told him things had gone considerably worse than not well with her sister.
It was familiar, this combination of lift and weight. Excitement and fear. He knew it well, because he felt it every time his daughter walked into a room.
With Beatrice, he called it love.
“Allie,” he said. “You’ve made it back.”
He looked for the lift in her face, in her eyes, but she put her phone in front of her and grimaced. “Jean drove me. I’m sorry I’m so late for this, I’ve got to—I can’t wear these clothes anymore. Sorry. I’m going to get changed real quick.”
She speed-walked past him, turning into the bedroom and closing the door.
“You might want to check on her,” Nev said.
Winston wasn’t sure he’d be welcome, but he rose anyway and knocked softly. Water was already running in the guest bath.
He tried the knob, but she’d locked him out.
By the time she reemerged with her hair down, wearing the same loose top and yoga pants she’d had on the night they met, Cath and Bea had come in from the patio and gathered around the table.
Allie clutched her phone in one hand. It was buzzing, even as she offered a low wave. “Hey ho.”
He extended his arm as she approached, hoping she’d tuck herself against him, gratified when she did. “Allie. I’d like to introduce my brother, Neville, and his partner, Cath. And of course you know Bea already.”
“It’s good to meet you guys.”
“We’ve already heard so much about you,” Nev offered.
Allie had drifted away from his side. She thumbed the screen of her phone.
Cath swept her long dark bangs away from her forehead. “Can we get you a slice?”
“Hm? Oh, no, thanks. I’m good. Sorry.” Allie bit her lip, then put her phone down on the table. It vibrated vigorously, the screen flashing with green message icons. “So how was your flight over?”
“It was fine,” Cath said. “Although I feel like the planes are shrinking. Is that part of getting old? Or are they actually smaller?”
“They’re loads smaller,” Bea said. Her accent was stronger, he noticed, in her uncle’s company. “I read about it. There’s something like thirteen inches less room for your arms now than there used to be?”
“Not thirteen, surely,” he said.
The conversation found its legs from there, but Allie said little, and her absorption in her phone was borderline impolite.
“Is everything all right?” he asked in a low tone at one point.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” she replied, her smile false.
He told himself he had neither right nor reason to be hurt when she didn’t join in the wide-ranging conversation Bea, Cath, and Nev had about everything from contemporary documentary filmmaking to the Benin bronzes to crowd-funding to body diversity in modern dance, but he didn’t seem to be able to prevent himself from feeling hurt regardless—and when Cath tried to draw Allie out in a discussion of her own work with vintage clothing and antiques without success, Winston became…irritated.
Irritated, because she was absorbed in her phone, unwilling to share anything, and because the conversation was exactly the sort he felt confident she enjoyed.
Irritated because he cared, perhaps cared too much, and it was making him impose expectations on their short acquaintance that had no place.