Reunion: A Novel by Hannah Pittard Read Free Book Online Page B

me. To stay. To sleep. I put my hand on top of Peter’s cash. My fingers start to shake.
    This, I realize, is what it is to be truly speechless.
    “Nell talked about you guys staying with Sasha,” says Rita. “But Ell thought it made more sense to stay at Stan’s. He says you’ll have things to go through. Stuff to divide.”
    “Stuff to divide?”
    “Family stuff,” she says.
    “Family stuff?” I say and I know, I really do, that I am being something of a dim-witted cow with the vaudeville repetition, and even deliberately so, but I can’t help myself.
    “Photos,” she says, and now I hear it, the exasperation. I’ve pushed her too far; I have behaved like one of her children. Her patience has worn thin. “Photos, jewelry. Your mother’s jewelry. It’s all still there.”
    “I don’t think so,” I say, and I don’t. Sasha is my father’s fifth wife, and even if she’s the most decent of them all—which is like calling Brutus the most noble of Caesar’s murderers—there’s no chance in hell that my mother’s jewelry hasn’t been divvied out to, or even stolen by, the women who followed in her footsteps and shared my father’s bed over the years. All those half siblings, all those daughters, my half sisters, there’s no way their mothers didn’t convince themselves of their rights to my mother’s pearls, to her few diamonds, to her watches and earrings and cuffs. There’s just no way. And money? Money to divide? Not a chance. I won’t even cross my fingers, that’s how little chance there is of an inheritance.
    “Listen,” Rita is saying, “what do I know? I’m not there. I don’t know. I have no idea. I’m just telling you what Ell said. Take it up with him.”
    On the other end of the line, there is a sharp girl cry that stings my eardrums. Rita says, “I have to go. The girls are going to kill each other. Listen. I’m sorry if I’ve been snippy. I don’t mean it.”
    “I know,” I say. My glass is nothing but ice and lime now. I wave at the bartender, who is trying hard to ignore me, but I catch her eye and point to my glass. I smile. She doesn’t like me, but she goes for the gin.
    “Rita,” I say. “I love you.”
    “You too, kiddo,” she says. “Tell your brother to call me when he lands. Or text.” There is another piercing scream in my ear. “Or, you know, we’re fine. My hands are full tonight. I’ll call tomorrow.” I think I hear a doorbell ringing in Rita’s background, but the line goes dead before I hear anything more.

8
Nell and Elliot arrive
    I am drunk by the time their flight lands. It’s close to eleven. Storms have been bullying the entire country. From California to Colorado to Georgia. Our father shot himself in the head this morning and the weather is singing him home. I don’t buy it, of course, but it’s what he’d say. It’s what he’d want any one of us to say at his funeral. The man oozed sentimentality, but he backed it up with nothing. Zilch. Nada. All talk. No substance. And yet here I am.
    Actually, here I am, slightly drunk, sitting at the far bank of chairs at Gate 39 in Concourse C of the H artsfi eld-J ackso n Atlanta International Airport under enormous television monitors, trying by sheer force of will to rid myself of hiccups. I’m down to a single five-dollar bill, but I’m trying not to think about that.
    Nell and Elliot are among the first to deboard. They probably flew first class. Perhaps Nell was able to intimidate the airline into some sort of bereavement discount. I hadn’t even considered such a thing, but it probably does exist. A discount and extra comfort for the bereaved. It is a wacked-out world. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
    For some reason, when I see them, I do not raise my hand in greeting. In fact, when they turn their backs to me and begin their lugubrious walk toward baggage claim, I do not immediately rise to reveal my presence. Instead, slowly, I kick my bag out in front of me and