Page 29 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
But a thin tension hung above the candlelight, perfectly invisible but still noticeable. Did they, too, feel the strangeness, thebignessof this? Beatrice peered at her sister and her niece through it, and they peered back, andthatwas why she didn’t want any more wine. One glass was enough—she needed to keep her mind focused.
So far, Minna had carried much of the conversation, affirming the unspoken agreement the adults had made to let her do it. First, she tried to insist that Beatrice stay in the room for rent,but Beatrice rejected this in no uncertain terms. She’d booked into a three-star bed-and-breakfast and dropped her bag on the way to Cordelia’s, glad to be in a completely neutral place. Minna eventually let the idea drop, and then she chattered about a Cooper’s hawk she’d seen in the woods on her way home from the library, where apparently she volunteered in the summer. She shared opinions about two kids who had been caught smoking weed in the library bathroom—one of the boys’ mothers was a librarian and she’d been livid. Minna hoped neither of the boys would be in her homeroom in August because they were idiots. “They think that trans kids don’t really exist. Also that manga is a foodstuff.”
Beatrice’s stomach tightened, but Cordelia said easily, “They don’t sound smart enough to read manga. You okay, poppet?”
Minna nodded, her face relaxed. “Totally. Haters just help me know who to avoid at lunch.”
Was being different that easy for her? It couldn’t be. Could it?
Minna shifted into peppering Beatrice with questions, but they were easy ones that she could answer without taking her attention from the way Cordelia’s face moved and how the lines around Astrid’s eyes creased deeper as she laughed with Minna.I have a Mini Cooper, Beatrice said.Red. Yes, it’s a convertible. No, I don’t cook much. My favorite ice cream flavor is peanut butter chocolate.
Beatrice tried to ignore the emotions that kept sneaking into her heart. Yes, she was deeply angry with Astrid in ways she knew she probably couldn’t even understand yet. But that was something for another day. Tonight was for fact-finding. Anger would only get in the way. She wanted to study each one of these people, making mental notes of each quirk and tic so she could look at them later under the microscope of memory.
Should she tell them about Winnie’s prediction? About what Evie said?
No. She didn’t believe it herself—why worry them with something so ridiculous?
Minna said, “Why don’t you have any children?”
Whoo.When she married Grant, she was so hopeful that his boys would love her, that they’d make one big happy family. After Josh and Lucas moved to live with their mother, she talked Grant into trying for a baby, not an easy sell. She had a miscarriage at fifteen weeks. What a lightweight phrase for something that had sent her to bed for a month.
Grant hadn’t wanted to try again. She’d been fine with that.
Okay, mostly fine.
She laced her fingers in her lap. “Never got around to it.”
“Do you still want to have one? How old are you?” Minna laughed. “Oh, ha. You’re forty-five, duh.” She raised her fork high, not seeming to notice the piece of sweet potato that bounced off it and onto the wooden tabletop.
“When’syourbirthday?”
Minna didn’t fall for it. “Forty-five is old, but nottooold. Halle Berry had Maceo when she was forty-seven, and she swears it was a surprise.”
Cordelia gaped at her. “How do you even know that?”
“Googling to see if you were too old to give me a sister.”
Pressing her hand to her chest, Cordelia said, “Oh, trust me. I am way, way,waytoo old for that.”
Minna pointed her fork at Beatrice. “So, any plans on that front? I would accept a cousin.”
“No plans. No desire.” Beatrice’s phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it. “If it helps, I’m pretty stoked I just inherited a niece.”
She grinned. “What about pets?”
“None at the moment. But I did used to have a three-legged cat with seven toes on each paw.”
“Whaaaat?” The way Minna’s face scrunched up in confused delight set off fireworks in Beatrice’s chest.
Her phone buzzed again, and then once more. “I’m sorry, I don’t usually look at my phone at the table.”
Cordelia pulled her knitting out of the pocket of her apron and made a go-on motion with her hand as Astridtsssked.
Grant:there was a fire -
Beatrice’s heart froze solid in her chest.
everything’s okay, Josh put the air fryer too close to a pizza box and forgot about it but your dad was going by on a walk and saw the smoke coming from the window and went in
