Long Night; Part 6

Been awhile.

There's alot of threads that get pulled into this one.  It's a Maggie scene.

enjoy.

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The dining room was set for eighteen.  Maggie marveled at how the table had seemed to double in size.  Or maybe it was a separate table altogether?  Would the Delaneys keep an entirely spare dining room table somewhere for larger family functions such as this?  She tried to imagine what their attic must look like, the treasures a mansion’s attic must contain.

And she noted two booster seats at the table and smiled.  So the Delaneys meant to include the children at the table.  For some reason this made her warm all over, and very appreciative of Velvet and Jonah.  While she herself had often been sent to a ‘kid’s table’ growing up, that seemed to be more out of necessity for space than anything else.  Even the adults were usually split up over several large tables, so numerous was her extended family.  Somehow seeing the younger place settings—there was even a pink plastic cup set up at one of them, alongside everyone else’s champagne flutes and crystal wine glasses—made Maggie very grateful for the Delaneys’ bottomless generosity and hospitality. 

She was glad there was no one in the dining room at that moment to see her well-up. 

After roundly cursing her silly hormones and blinking away the sentimentality, Maggie took a deep breath and headed toward the sounds of chatting and laughing.

She was nearly bowled over in the foyer by Velvet, one of the twins, and a beautiful dark skinned girl Maggie guessed must be Lola’s older sister. They’d been headed to the kitchen.

“Oh!  Good!  Maggie!”  Mrs. Delaney exclaimed and grabbed her by the shoulders, deftly dodging the pâté platter and landing two kisses of welcome on her cheeks.

“Hi Maggie!”  The twin said.  Maggie wished she could tell them apart.  She smiled in greeting but didn’t have a chance to speak--

“Did you make something?”  Velvet asked, examining the platter.  “Oh, no, this is my pâté.”  She giggled.  “But what are you doing with it?”  She giggled again.  “Oh, you’re helping?  Aren’t you sweet, thank you honey, but you’re the guest of honor!”

Maggie had barely drawn a breath and Velvet had managed to have a whole conversation by herself.

“Mum, let the girl breathe!”  Teased the tall redheaded girl affectionately.  “Sheesh.”

Velvet giggled again and she was joined in her merriment by the lovely young girl with the startling blue-gray eyes.  Velvet noticed Maggie staring at the girl.  “I’m so sorry Maggie, I’m just so excited.”  She placed a hand on the girl’s back and gently prodded her forward a bit.  “This is Keer, Nolan’s eldest.  Keer, this is your cousin’s new wife, Maggie.”  Velvet’s smile could have lit a small city.

Keer Delaney extended her hand and Maggie balanced the large pâté platter on her left palm in order to facilitate a handshake.  “Nice to meet you Maggie.  You work at the shop, right?”  The girl’s handshake was confident and it reminded Maggie forcibly of Nolan.

Maggie smiled as she shook the girl’s hand.  “Nice to meet you too Keer.  Um, yes, I work for your dad.”

“Are you still gunna, now that you’re rich?”

The twin laughed uproariously and Velvet giggled after gasping.  Maggie blushed all the way down to her toes as she met the girl’s earnest, no-nonsense gaze and searched for some appropriate response.

“Hell, maybe she’ll buy me out and I can retire early.”  Nolan spoke from the archway of the living room.

Maggie smiled at him, but found she was having trouble meeting his eyes.

“Hi Mr. Delaney.”  Maggie said.

“It’s going to get pretty confusing around here if you insist on formality tonight Maggie.”  Nolan teased warmly.  “You can call me Nolan.”  He crossed to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek in greeting.

Maggie smiled, but she didn’t respond. 

“Genny, be a dear and go get the brie things and, Keer honey, would you mind grabbing the fruit tray?  Genny knows where it is.”  Maggie thought her mother-in-law had a much gentler way of getting people to help than her new grandmother-in-law. 

Genny muttered something about needing a treasure map to locate the things her mother hid around that kitchen and Keer laughed as they breezed toward the dining room.

“How is business anyway Nolan?”  Velvet asked pleasantly, absentmindedly re-arranging some of the little appetizers on Maggie’s tray.

“Decent.”  He replied.  “I have this wonderful new sales clerk who seems to make the stock fly off the shelves.”

Velvet looked overjoyed as her gaze lit on Maggie.  “Really?!”

Maggie shook her head.  “He’s only teasing.”

“Am I?”  Nolan’s smile was charming and friendly.  “That week you took off was my slowest week in months.”

Velvet clapped with glee.  “I’ll have to come in and visit you when you’re working!”  She gushed.  “Maybe I’ll buy enough to give you the capital required for that baby unicorn I’ve heard so much about, Nolan.”

Nolan groaned as Velvet and Maggie shared a laugh at the poor father’s plight.

“Dad!”  A little boy raced into the foyer and darted around Nolan in a quick circle before dashing to the hall closet. 

“What’s up?”  Nolan asked with a grin.

“Tell ‘em I went that way!”  The boy whispered excitedly, wrenching open the closet and pulling the door almost all of the way closed behind him.

Maggie couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up. 

Just then Grey prowled into the foyer, Lola perched atop his shoulders.  Maggie’s jaw fell open.  She’d never seen him interact with children before tonight and until this moment she couldn’t have pictured such a scenario.  Grey Delaney and kids were not two images that went together, yet here he was.

“There she is!”  Lola announced in her piping, high-pitched little voice, and pointed a triumphant finger at Maggie.

“Good work.”  Said Grey, sounding a bit like a secret agent.  “One down, one to go.”

“Daddy did you see Ajay?  Look how tall I am!”

“I see you.  If he’s hiding in the chandelier you’ll have no trouble at all.”  Nolan commented.

Lola giggled and Grey swung her down from his shoulders with an easy grace that made something flutter beneath Maggie’s ribs.

“You go check the kitchen; I’ll scout around out here.  Divide and conquer.”

Lola nodded, looking conspiratorial.  She probably didn’t really understand either of the words in that phrase, but she seemed to grasp the spirit of it just fine.

“Oh good, I’m headed that way anyhow, let’s go together.”  Velvet said.

“Okay!”  Lola agreed “But hurry!”  And she zipped through the archway into the dining room.

Velvet laughed merrily as she followed, but not before giving her son’s cheek an affectionate caress.

Grey’s eyes followed his mother out of the foyer before they snapped to Maggie.  “What are you doing?”  He asked in a quiet but sharp voice.  His eyes went to the tray she was carrying.

Maggie’s eyes widened at his abrupt mood shift.  She was being interrogated, but she had no idea what for.

“N-nothing.”  She said uncertainly.

He opened his mouth to snap back but Nolan was quicker.  “She’s not harboring a fugitive, if that’s what you mean.”

Grey’s head snapped to where his Uncle had migrated, over near the coat closet.  He seemed torn between his desire to scold Maggie for something and putting on a pleasant face for company.  “Did either of you two citizens see a small, dangerous monster run through here?”  He said after several long moments had ticked by in uncomfortable silence.

A smile spread across Nolan’s face and he nodded.  “There’s a monster on the loose?”  He asked agreeably.

“I’m afraid so.”  Grey answered, casting one last glare at Maggie before stalking toward the closet.  She was bewildered.  What had she done to offend him?  Quickly she did a hasty mental run-through of everything she’d done and said since they’d arrived, but she couldn’t figure out how she could have done something to cause him offense in the ten, maybe fifteen minutes they’d been there.

“Well, please, I have a wife and children Sir, you have to catch that monster!”  Nolan played along somewhat casually.  It sounded to Maggie as if they played this game a lot and it had become old hat to them.

“Never fear,”  Grey responded mildly.  “I happen to have a monster tracking device right here in my watch, and it can sniff out monsters wherever they’re hiding.”

Nolan was laughing silently and pointing surreptitiously to the closet. 

Grey made a beeping sound like a radar picking up an anomaly.  “I think there’s one nearby.”  He said between beeps.  Maggie was enthralled.  Who was this person?

“Don’t worry madam, I’ll protect you.”  Nolan said, scooting away from the closet to give Grey more room for the ambush, and coming to rest by Maggie’s side.

She smiled at him, but could hardly take her eyes off this bizarre version of Grey.  The one playing monster hunter with his little cousin.

“Get ready.”  Nolan muttered under his breath, his eyes on the closet and a half-smile on his lips.

Maggie opened her mouth to ask what she should expect when Grey rattled the closet door handle and a valiant effort at ferocious growling and snarling emanated from within.  Her heart seized up at the grin that spread over her husband’s face.  He was so beautiful.

“This is it, Monster.”  He announced in a stern voice that belied the grin.  “The jig is up.  Come out with your hands in the air!”

More growling followed, but it was peppered with ecstatic giggles.

“He’ll never surrender!”  Nolan called pleasantly.

“Never is not an option.”  Grey responded in a sober voice, and then yanked the closet door open after an exaggerated count of three.

The little boy charged out of the closet in a fit of giggling and growling, his face scrunched from glee and from his play at being ferocious.  Grey caught him up in mid-leap and he seemed to fly for a moment before he was pinned against his older cousin and subjected to a merciless bout of tickling.

The little boy shrieked and hollered and laughed so hard he looked like he might just explode.  Maggie grew concerned that he might not be able to draw breath.

“Mercy!”  The boy cried frantically, high-pitched giggling making it very difficult for him to be understood.

“Mercy?!”  Grey challenged, sounding affronted.

“Pleeeee-hee-hee-hee-zzzzzzz!”  He was turning quite red and the smile on his face looked like it stretched tight from ear to ear.

The uproar was drawing a crowd.  An exuberant little Lola came bouncing back in, shouting triumphantly about the capture.  Keer wasn’t too far behind her younger sister, and she looked breathlessly delighted at the scene.  From the other side Grey’s Dad appeared in the archway with a beautiful, exotic woman in tow.  Maggie recognized her from the photo in Nolan’s office, but thought it hardly did her justice.  This woman was stunning.  It made Maggie inexplicably happy to see that she was curvy.  Full figured, but well proportioned.  She reminded Maggie powerfully of her own mother, though this woman was taller.  Maggie’s Mamma hadn’t been much more than 5’2” or so. 

“I dunno.”  Said Grey, struggling to keep a firm hold on the wriggling mass in his arms, tickling all the while.  He flipped the boy over so that he was dangling upside down.  “Should we have mercy on a monster?”  He called to the foyer at large.

Lola declared loudly that no, he should not receive mercy, but the rest of the foyer outvoted her.

“I guess even monsters have mothers.” Grey reasoned, throwing a grin over at the archway where his aunt stood waiting for the little boy’s inevitable release.

“Please good sir, release him to my custody--before he passes out.”  Maggie had expected an accent, but as exotic as the woman looked she seemed to have been born or at least raised here.  She didn’t have even a trace of an accent, but her voice was surprisingly low in timbre and sort of raspy—an exciting and intriguing sort of voice; deeply female and rooted in the earth, Maggie thought.

Grey flipped the boy once more, so that he was right side up, and placed him on the ground.  He spun the boy around three times before releasing him, muttering something that sounded like a magic spell, but Maggie couldn’t catch it.  Lola was hopping around with a spatula she must have pilfered from the kitchen, waving it like a magic wand and casting her own spells into the foyer.

And then Grey let go, and the little boy, his eyes not quite able to focus, started toward his mother with a grin and a very unsteady step.  The foyer chuckled at his weaving wandering, and the boy laughed too. 

“Get the monster!”  Lola cried, and charged at her brother at full speed. 

Maggie’s eyes widened in alarm, but the little girl’s parents worked as a perfect team; moving in swift unison Mrs. Delaney wrapped her arms around her stumbling little boy as Mr. Delaney grabbed up his youngest and tossed her into the air just a moment before what would have been quite a nasty, full speed collision.  Maggie felt like clapping.  Lola did clap when at last she was nestled onto her father’s hip.  “Again!”  She demanded, drawing appreciative chuckles from the crowd.  She was a bit of a ham!

“That’s the problem with those ones.”  A cold, snide voice declared in a mock-whisper, and Maggie turned to see Mrs. Calder on the stairs behind her, pretending to speak quietly to Avalon.  “All the noise!”

The mood in the foyer immediately shifted and Maggie felt the back of her neck tingle a little at the tension.  Mrs. Calder seemed not to register the shift at all.  She continued down the stairs with a smug, false little smile.  “Come along dear—“  She said to Avalon, “The appetizers are being served.”

Maggie’s eyes flicked to Avalon, who, to her credit, looked thoroughly embarrassed and apologetic.  She trailed after her grandmother and rolled her eyes, indicating that she believed the old woman just as insufferable as everyone else in the foyer did.

Maggie wasn’t sure what the older woman had meant, but it had felt decidedly uncharitable.  The old woman very clearly did not care for children.

As Mrs. Calder sailed by her she scooped up a little crostini of pâté from the tray without so much as acknowledging Maggie with a glance.  Then she went out of the foyer toward the dining room saying something about ‘the good families’ of Cedar Falls and ‘mixed marriages’ and Maggie’s jaw fell open.  It was getting to be the default mode for her jaw this evening.

“Hello again Maggie.”  Avalon said quietly as she passed, pausing for just a moment to place two stiff kisses on her cheeks. 

“Hello—“  Maggie replied vaguely, but Avalon had already disappeared through the archway to the dining room before Maggie managed to move her tongue and vocal chords to action.  Had she misheard the woman? Or maybe misunderstood?

“I’m so sorry.”  She thought she heard Jonah mutter to his brother and sister-in-law.

Nolan lifted his lips into a smile Maggie recognized from working with him as his ‘grin and bear it’ smile.  It was the one he wore when particularly pretentious or obnoxious customers would come in and drop label names to sound impressive, or put down his shop as ‘quaint’, or murmur comments about the selection being lacking.

He shrugged and his wife waved a hand, as if to say ‘don’t worry about it’.  She looked less bothered than did her husband.  Nolan crooked a finger in the direction of his eldest daughter, who had moved out of the archway when the old woman passed by, and she obediently moved to his side.  He ruffled her hair, which she tried to dodge, and then he looked up at Maggie.

“Maggie, I’d like you to meet my family.”  He said, his tight smile slowly melting into a more genuine one, the tension slowly ebbing out of his shoulders and the muscles around his eyes.  “Lola you’ve already met, and this is my daughter Keer,” Keer gave her a little wave—they’d just met a few minutes before—“This little monster is Ajay,”  Ajay looked suddenly sheepish and moved to hide behind his mother’s flowing skirt.  “And this is my wife Zahra.  Zee, this is Maggie.”

“So glad to finally meet you Maggie.”  Zahra Delaney said with a warm, dazzlingly white smile.  “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Maggie felt her cheeks flushing.  “Thank you.”  She said, feeling shy and sheepish as well and suddenly wishing she had a mother’s skirt to hide behind.  “The same goes for you—for all of you.”

Zahra looked pleased and laughed.  “Only good things I hope.”

“Oh, yes, all wonderful things.”  Maggie rushed.

Nolan and his wife laughed.  Maggie thought back to the picture on his desk at the shop.  Something wasn’t quite right.  An older daughter, a baby girl, a younger boy—there was a son missing.

Looking from face to face she opened her mouth to say something, inquire about the boy she had yet to meet, when Grey appeared at her side.  He stared at her meaningfully but she couldn’t guess at his meaning.

“This is my wife, Maggie.”  Grey said, clearly addressing his cousins.  “We got married.”  He added, when the foyer remained quiet.

“Why didn’t we get to go to the wedding?”  Keer asked, her tone slightly accusatory.

“Yeah!”  Exclaimed Lola.  “We’re flower girls!”  Maggie guessed she was making reference to Avalon’s upcoming wedding.

“We didn’t have a wedding.”  Grey explained.

“But you just said you got married.”  Keer countered, trying to catch her cousin in a lie.

“Kiki, not every marriage has a wedding.”  Zahra Delaney said gently. 

“Whaaaat?”  Lola asked, craning around her father to stare at her mother.

“Oh, like, justice of the peace?”  Keer asked.  Maggie was impressed.  How old was the girl?  She looked like maybe she was ten or eleven.

“Exactly.”  Grey said.  “Nobody went, just me and Maggie and the JP.”

“Why?”  Keer demanded.

“Keer Delaney, watch the tone please.”  Her father said quietly.

She pouted.  “Sorry.”

The foyer went quiet again.  Maggie swallowed.  She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

“Hi Maggie.”  Jonah finally broke the quiet, crossing to her and kissing her cheeks gently.  “You look lovely.”  He said generously.

“Hi.  Oh.  Thank you so much.  Hi.”  He smiled.  She thought he understood how she was feeling and was grateful for his sympathy.

“I’m headed to see if I can be of any use in the kitchen.”  He said affably.  “I think I might be able to locate the cookie jar, if anyone wants to join me…”  He said striding toward the dining room with a small smile.

Lola pumped her legs in a frantic effort to get down, Ajay popped out from behind his mother, and even Keer lit up and spun to follow Uncle Jonah.

“Don’t spoil your dinner!” Zahra called after them.

“One cookie.”  Nolan was cautioning the squiggling little beauty on his hip. 

She nodded and whimpered and pushed against him, her spatula wand nearly smacking him in the face.  “Lola Jane.”  He said sternly, but Maggie thought she spied a twinkle in his eye.

“Yes Daddy.  Just one!”

He landed a swift kiss on her head before setting her loose.

“You have a beautiful family.”  Maggie said to the handsome couple remaining in the foyer.

They smiled in response and met eyes.  Maggie was moved to see how much love and affection and mutual respect could be contained in one small glance.  “Thank you.”  Zahra said at the same time Nolan said “Thanks.”

“Where is—“ She began, thinking of the older boy in the picture, but Grey cut her off.

“Did my mother ask you to do this?”  He asked shortly.  She furrowed her brow.  He looked formidable and grim.

“Do what?”  She asked, embarrassed by the tone he was using to address her.

He gestured to the tray she’d almost forgotten she was balancing on one palm.  She’d been a waitress since she was thirteen; it came as second nature to her to walk around with large trays.  Besides that, she came from a large, fairly traditional Mexican family.  There wasn’t a single family gathering that didn’t involve her walking around with a tray of something or other.

“Oh.  No.  Your grandmother asked me—“

Grey’s expression darkened.  “She ‘asked you’?”  He demanded.  “Or did she tell you?”

Maggie blinked several times and wondered at the difference.  Her own grandmother never exactly ‘asked’ when she wanted something done, she simply directed Maggie to a task.  She thought back to her interaction with Grey’s grandmother.  “Um.  I suppose she ‘told’ me—but—“

“Put it down.”  Grey said coolly.

Maggie stared at him.  He wasn’t looking at her.  It felt as though he was rather disgusted with her.  “It’s alright, I don’t mind helping—“

“Put it down.”  He repeated, this time with steel edging the command.

“I don’t understand—“  Maggie said, her voice hardening to match his.  She didn’t like being ordered around by him.

She felt the tray being lifted from her hand and she startled—being a waitress for so long made her nerves jump at the thought of a spilled platter.  But it was Nolan.

“Let me.”  He said gently.  “Once a cater-waiter, always a cater-waiter.”  He smiled.

“I really don’t mind.”  Maggie protested.

“She told you to carry it because she assumed you’re the goddamned help.”  Grey snapped.

Maggie froze.  She watched Nolan’s smile evaporate and his eyes narrow at Grey.  “You’re the guest of honor.”  He said in a forced neutral tone, speaking to Maggie but not taking his eyes off his nephew.  “Why don’t you go ahead into the living room and relax.”

Suddenly Maggie remembered the comment Mrs. Calder had made about Maggie’s ability to speak English, about the ‘also nanny’ exchange, and then about what she thought she’d heard her say about Nolan’s ‘mixed’ family and she washed over furious. 

“Thank you Mr. Delaney.”  She said stiffly.  “But I think I’d like to go offer Mrs. Calder some Pate.”

Nolan’s eyes flicked back to Maggie and he stared at her.  Then he grinned.  “I understand the impulse.”  He said.

He looked ready to hand the tray back but Grey grabbed her elbow and steered her out of the foyer without another word.  She allowed him to do it only because she wasn’t willing to have a scene in front of his family.  She wanted to pull away and give him a piece of her mind.

When they’d crossed into the living room, which was blessedly vacant at present, he pulled her around and put a finger on her lips.  Her eyes widened and she had the insane impulse to bite it.  Who the hell did he think he was?  What gave him the right to man-handle her and shush her like a naughty child?

“Nolan’s son died three years ago.” He said in an urgent whisper.  “They’re better about it now but whenever it gets mentioned he tends to go off the deep end.”

Her lips parted in shock and he removed his finger somewhat carefully.  She was startled.  Then filled with grief for them.  Then very, very grateful that Grey had so deftly circumvented her near colossal faux-pas.  “Oh my God.”  She breathed.  “I’m so sorry.”

Grey licked his lips, swallowed, and nodded.  “I figured he’d never said anything at work, and that you might be expecting four kids if you’ve seen pictures.”  He said, keeping his voice low.  “He never, ever talks about it.”  She felt his grip on her elbow soften.  “I should have told you before we got here.”

They were standing quite close.  His gentle hold on her elbow felt warm and strong, and very distracting.  Her lips felt flushed and strange where his finger had been.  She gazed into his pale green eyes and could barely draw breath.  She thought she saw a ghost of grief and pain in his eyes and she reached up, without a second thought, and gently placed her hand on his face.  His cousin.  She’d lost a baby cousin when she was maybe twelve, and it had been just awful for the entire family.  She watched him blink several times at the presence of her hand on his cheek, but he didn’t pull away.

“Like father like son.”  Said an icy voice from behind Maggie.  “Keep your paws off the help Calder Grey—I hope you signed a prenuptial agreement; I don’t want half my company in the hands of the young lady you’ve scorned when she catches you playing with the servants.”

Maggie’s jaw fell all the way open and Grey’s grip on her elbow clenched once again as her hand hastily leapt off his cheek.  She watched something cold and dark steal over his expression before he curled his lips into a dangerous smile.  Gently he guided her lower jaw back upward, his index finger curled under her chin, his eyes locked on hers.  Then he placed a hot, electric kiss on her lips.

Maggie felt hot and cold all over.  She heard the woman tisk in disgust behind her.  His tongue flicked over her lips once, then, just as suddenly as it had come, his mouth was off hers and he was pulling himself to his full height and spinning Maggie to face the old crone.

“Granny!  You’re looking radiant as usual.”  He said in a mockery of a warm greeting.  “I’d like to introduce you to my wife.  Magdalena Teresa Ramirez Delaney? My Grandmother, Mrs. Sebastian Calder Esquire.  You can call her Granny.”

Maggie stared wide-eyed at the woman and endured the woman’s pale, ice-blue eyes scanning over her from head to toe several times, each once-over proving apparently more disagreeable to the woman than the last.  “I’m not remotely in the mood for your little jokes tonight Calder.”  She said dismissively and moved into the room.  “Better let her scurry off back to the kitchen, I don’t think your brainless mother thought to hire more than one of them this evening.  Eighteen guests and only one server?  I swear that girl gets more empty-headed every day.”

Maggie heard a small, almost inaudible growl from the man beside her and his grip on her elbow was becoming bruising.

“I’m so pleased to finally meet you Mrs. Calder.”  Maggie ventured, afraid of what Grey would say otherwise. 

The woman sneered at her and looked distinctly put-off at being addressed by ‘the help’.  “What have you done with your tray?”  She demanded coldly.

“Granny, it seems your age is catching up with you.  You must not have heard me well enough. This is my wife.”  Grey repeated, his voice chilly and threatening. 

“Oh there you both are!  Good!”  Velvet Delaney rushed into the room looking flushed with excitement.  Viola trailed after her looking bored and quite beautiful.  “Oh, mother, you’ve met Maggie?”

Mrs. Calder looked faintly furious as she began to comprehend that this young, plain, Mexican girl was indeed now legally related to her.  “This enchanting creature?”  She asked, her tone dripping with poison.

Velvet grinned and nodded enthusiastically.  “Don’t they look gorgeous together?!”  She hurried over to caress Grey’s cheek once more and then squeeze Maggie’s free hand excitedly. 

“Very handsome.”  Mrs. Calder responded, her lip curled into an ungracious sneer.  “But of course we know his blood could be mixed with just about anything, afterall, so it’s likely in his nature to seek out the more, colorful, types.”

“Mother!”  Velvet looked hurt and mortified and very distressed.

“Hey Maggie, wanna see Grey’s old room?”  Viola asked brightly, wresting possession of Maggie’s elbow from Grey as he released it and began striding toward his grandmother.

“Um—“  Was all she managed as Viola steered her from the living room.  She craned her neck to try to watch what was happening behind her.

Velvet had both her hands on Grey’s arm, which seemed to be enough to keep him in check, and Mrs. Calder appeared entirely unruffled.

As she and Viola reached the foot of the stairs Mr. Delaney strode into the foyer and halted.

“You better get in there.”  Viola said with a smirk, dragging Maggie up the first few steps.  “Mum needs you.  Grey’s about to murder Granny.”

Maggie watched with a mixture of alarm and fascination as Mr. Delaney sighed, adjusted his glasses, nodded firmly, and strode toward the living room.

“So.  Having a good evening so far?”  Viola laughed as she pulled Maggie insistently upward.

“Shouldn’t we—“  but Maggie didn’t really know what she should be doing.  She wanted to be down there, with Grey, but at the same time she wanted nothing less.  She was concerned and very confused; what had all that been about?  What had Mrs. Calder meant by some of those things she’d insinuated?  Maggie recognized well enough that they were insulting, but much of what the woman had said made very little sense to her.  “Should we, go? Help?”

“Nah.  My Dad will handle it.  He always does.”  Viola sounded confident.  “C’mon, Grey’ll come up here and get us when my Gran’s been put in her place.” 

Maggie furrowed her brow.  This really was going to be a very long night.