Page 107 of Gifted & Talented

Eilidh: Let’s not be greedy.

Meredith scoffs, as if this, more than anything she has heard over the course of the last few minutes, is the dumbest thing anyone has ever said in the history of the world. As if somewhere, angels wept over the stunning emptiness of thought. As if the idiocy was such that dark arts could only be blamed, for such incompetency is written, prophesied for centuries by hell itself.

Eilidh: Is there something you’d like to say to me, Meredith?

Eilidh’s mask is slipping. Her hair seems to cascade from its usual sleek bun.

Meredith turns to her with unmissable combativeness.

Meredith: Dad’s dead, Eilidh. You don’t need to win him over anymore. You can admit that he fucked us with this.

Eilidh struggles to breathe, warring internally with her wrathful swarm.

Eilidh: Is that really what you think? That he fuckedus,plural?

Meredith scoffs again, this time with no small showing of pity.

Meredith: You don’t know the half of it.

Eilidh: Oh? Then fucking enlighten me, Sister Bitch.

Meredith’s posture goes rigid. Arthur isn’t listening, lost in his own thoughts. His inattentiveness to his usual role of arbitration makes the situation rapidly worse.

Meredith: Excuse me?

John looks profoundly uncomfortable.

John: I should add—there are some personal stipulations. Part of Thayer’s bequeathal necessitates that Eilidh Olympia Wren will always have employment at Wrenfare, should she choose it.

Eilidh looks stricken by this, the swarm temporarily stilling between her ears.

Eilidh: Are—are you serious?

Meredith looks smugly repulsed.

Meredith: There you go, Eilidh. Daddy’s little princess will never have to hunt for food, she’ll never have to starve. Happy now?

The two sisters stare at each other.

Eilidh: Do youreallythink I don’t know what that means?

Meredith: No, I don’t think you do, Eilidh.

Arthur’s knuckles turn white; beneath the sconces, the dining room lights flicker with the cadence of a racing pulse. Lou notices. She looks at Arthur, more concerned than questioning, which awakens Arthur’s impulses for mediation. He rouses as if from the dead.

Arthur: Come on. Eilidh, she’s right. Death, leave Eilidh alone.

Meredith: Oh,thank you,Brother Saintly—

Arthur: Meredith.

He looks as if he’d like to say more but can’t. His hands are trembling, the chandelier overhead beginning to shower the floor with sparks, a cascade of light that twirls in ribbons as it spirals onto the dining room carpet. Lou observes all this with a puzzled frown. Monster claps his hands. Yves disappears into the kitchen.

Gillian looks painfully up at Arthur, speaking quietly to him.

Gillian: You never needed anything from him, Art.

Arthur: I needed lots of things from him, actually. But you’re probably right that they were never going to be in the will.

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