Page 10 of The Usual Family Mayhem

A few hours later I wandered back into the kitchen. Staying focused and careful required food. Food in this instance meant a dessert.

Gram and Celia kept a supply of freshly made cupcakes in a sealed container on the counter. They’d set six aside. Well, they did when I was home. I rarely saw either of them eat any of the items they baked, so I assumed the easy access was for my benefit and appreciated the gesture.

Today’s selection included cheesecake-stuffed chocolate cupcakes, the most glorious-sounding description in the world. I didn’t like to play favorites, but this flavor had earned a spot on my Best Cupcakes List. Any dessert that didn’t make me chose between cheesecake and a cupcake was a clear winner.

The ladies usually added colored sprinkles to the icing. During my freshman year of college, a woman on my dorm floor referred to sprinkles as jimmies. She grew up outside Philadelphia and jimmies were a thing there. When I told Gram about the different name, she told me I needed to switch dorms. Clearly, she was not a believer in jimmies.

Today? No sprinkles. To be fair, there were sprinkles in the icing, just not enough to make the decoration worthwhile. I didn’t know how to bake and wasn’t really interested in learning how, but I knew where to find important things like thesprinkles, tiny marshmallows, nuts, and other assorted cupcake toppings.

I set my midday dessert down with some reluctance and headed for the pantry. Sealed cannisters lined the shelves. Different flours and sugars. Muffin wrappers. Pans, cookie cutters, and... a cabinet. A wooden cabinet with double doors. Possibly an antique. An inexplicably locked cabinet right where the containers of assorted sprinkles should be.

Why in the world would they lock up baking supplies? I refused to believe this choice was some sort of message or way to decrease my sugar consumption because Gram and Celia spent a good portion of my visits shoving food in my direction. Celia threw in ayou’re too thinevery now and then. That delusion was one of the many reasons I loved her.

Maybe it just looked like... nope. It was a lock. I pulled and tugged. The thing didn’t budge. I moved the cabinet around to look at the back and heard something rattling around in there.

Every shelf in the pantry looked the same as I remembered. This was the only change, but it was a weird one. It was almost as if they were hiding something.

Not again.

The words tumbled in my head and wouldn’t leave.

The last time they acted weird, avoided conversation topics, and stashed things out of sight was two years ago and Gram ended up in the hospital. Crushing chest pain. Heart palpitations. Nausea. They’d waited until she went to the emergency room before filling me in on any of it. Even then, Jackson was the one who called. Since the news sent me into a tailspin, he also said I shouldn’t drive and bought me a plane ticket then picked me up at the airport.

I came home, thinking she’d had a heart attack. At the hospital, the doctor told me the cause was a syndrome called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Jackson explained the nickname for the condition was broken heart syndrome, a weakened heart brought on by severe emotional or physical stress.

Gram refused to tell me what had sent her into the health nosedive. She waved off the concern and insisted she only needed rest. Celia divided her time between pacing and leaving the room to cry in private, thinking I couldn’t hear her. I could. Jackson agreed with me that something bigger—something Gram and Celia were keeping from me—must have happened.

Yeah, my crappy father happened.

I’d been stumbling my way through law school when he popped up with a fresh-faced attorney and talk of newly discovered forensic evidence. He thought he deserved another trial and opportunity to prove he didn’t kill Mom. Gram got paperwork and a call from the prosecutor then collapsed.

He’d been in prison for eighteen years at that point. On a rainy Friday night, while I was staying overnight with Gram and doing little kid stuff, he strangled my mom then set fire to the house to destroy any incriminating evidence. Not that he ever admitted to his crime. He’d wept on cue and talked about being innocent. He wasn’t.

Once he got caught, he pivoted and blamed Mom for her own murder.She was erratic. She attacked me. She was unstable.It turned out she’d committed the ultimate sin in his eyes. She’d asked for a divorce.

My father had been the guy everyone liked. He seemed by all outward appearances to be a great family man, but he didhave what his then-boss calleda bit of a temper. That one Friday night it spiked, and he lost his usual rigid control.

Gram and Celia had hidden the news of my father’s new court filings and claims because they didn’t want tobotherme while I was studying. That was the word they used. They didn’t tell me details and wouldn’t show me the paperwork until I threatened to use Jackson and his lawyer skills to track the information down.

My father never got a new trial. He eventually slithered back under his rock, but the memory of how far Gram and Celia would go to protect me lingered. They’d hide bad news even if it meant landing in the hospital. Their behavior, no matter how good-hearted, put me on a constant state of high alert.

The warning bell pinged now as a familiar dread welled up from my stomach. The two women who’d raised me and who I loved unconditionally were hiding something. The only questions were how big and how bad... and how hard it would be to pry it out of them.

I’d come home to fix a business mess I’d made. Looked like I was staying for a totally different reason.

Chapter Six

My first stop on thefigure out what the ladies didn’t want me to knowtour was the baking annex. I walked in, expecting to see Gram and Celia cleaning up. My plan was to pretend I was on an icing-tasting run then fire questions at them while their defenses were down.

The low rumble of voices didn’t register until I opened the door and found Celia and Harlan, Jackson’s dad, standing in the middle of the main room, locked in what looked like a top-secret conversation. Between Celia shaking her head and Harlan’s nonstop talking, I couldn’t figure out if I’d walked in too early or a step too late.

I also couldn’t just back out of the room again without it being weird, so... “Hello.”

Harlan smiled. Not a real smile. One of his fake lobbyist smiles. The kind that promised a ton of bullshit waited on the horizon.

He had what Gram called presence. He stood there, unmoving, and still seemed to take up most of the room. A man with a law degree and other academic accolades to his credit. He threw around his family’s reputation and his place in the community every time he walked out the door. Successful and well-dressed. Wealthy and fit. Confident and handsome in a chiseled and chilly sort of way.

His actual business title was political strategist. He made a living getting other people elected to office. He schmoozed and told stories. He made deals and lured in big-money donors. He worked on state campaigns for local politicians and on national campaigns for politicians who needed votes and influence in North Carolina.

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