Page 14 of Nineteen Eighty
Irish Colleen pointed at the clock. They could drink now. “I think it’s wonderful, Lizzy, that you and Connor are going to Paris for the summer. What a thoughtful gift from Augustus.”
“Ana has changed him,” Maureen said. “He’s not the same man.”
“He is,” Colleen countered. “But he’s regained some of the softness in him that he lost when Maddy died. You remember how he was with her.”
“Never like that with any of us,” Evangeline said.
“We didn’t need it like she did,” Elizabeth said. “Every Maddy in this world deserves an Augustus.”
“Didn’t save her, though,” Maureen said, looking away.
“No,” Irish Colleen said. She crossed herself. “Not even Augustus could do that, could he?”
Colleen raised her glass. “To Maddy.”
Her mother and sisters joined her. “To Maddy.”
“Are we going to talk about Charles, or is that off-limits?” Colleen asked.
Evangeline whistled through her teeth. Maureen and Elizabeth exchanged looks.
Irish Colleen spread her hands over the table. “I don’t know what to say any more, girls. I truly don’t. His situation has been volatile for a while now, and he adds to it as if he can’t help himself. I don’t think he can. Did you know he bought a petrol plant?”
The reactions from all four daughters were various exclamations of shock.
“Yes, well, he did. And a rice mill, too. Near Abbeville, I believe. He’s been down there a lot, and don’t ask me why. He never did have a mind for business, but now he’s been talking as if he wants to buy up something in every industry. He mentioned last week he had need of a shrimping boat.” Irish Colleen raised her hand. “Your hearing doesn’t need adjusted. It’s what I said. But he’s a man of thirty now. I never had any illusions of control when he was a boy, and I don’t now.”
“Nicolas,” Elizabeth said. “If Charles wants to mess up his own life, then that’s his choice, but what about Nic? He might as well not exist. He’s not letting Augustus and I kidnap him anymore. I even tried to say he should stay with us because his school is in New Orleans, but Charles has Richard drive the kid in, every single day, instead. What sense does that make?”
“None,” Colleen said. “But Charles has always practiced his own brand of sense.”
“I’ve tried too,” Maureen said, shaking her head. “We have plenty of room at Blanchard House.”
“I’ll try when we get settled, too,” Colleen said.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Good luck.”
“The girls, though? What about them?” Evangeline asked.
“You can’t pry him away,” Irish Colleen said. “He’s only brought them to see me a handful of times. I have to drive to Ophélie to see them, and even then he acts like they’re a hidden artifact at a museum.”
“I wonder…” Colleen started.
They all looked at her, but she realized only she and her mother knew about the daughter that had been sent away, all those years ago.
“Charles obviously has his own reasons, and we’ll never understand what those are.”
Maureen turned to Elizabeth. “Are you excited for Paris?”
Elizabeth brightened, but dropped her face. “Yeah. I am.”
“Paris!” Maureen said again. “If only…”
Irish Colleen smiled at her youngest. “I hope you come back married and happy, my dear. Truly, there could be no greater gift for your old mother.”
“You’re not so old, Mama,” she replied, but they’d been saying this so long that it had started to become a lie.
Irish Colleen wasn’t old, but she’d started to seem old. She no longer moved so fast. She took so many different medications she needed an organizer to stay on top of them. Her arthritic hands weren’t always up for cooking, which hurt the most, because over meals was the one way they’d always connected. She’d even moved her bedroom downstairs, because climbing to the second floor was too hard on her.