“I’m considering dedicating a portion of my land for this purpose, but we need partners with more substantial business experience. I know Spenser Mining is having some challenges. Understandable. Times have changed, and mining isn’t what it used to be.” I do my damnedest to meet her suspicion with sincerity. Or at least blow some hoots of sycophantic smoke directly up her clenched old ass. “Crann Na Beatha could be a great opportunity. Diversify your business. Give something lovely back to the Island and the people. An innovative legacy investment for you. Really positive PR, strategically speaking.”

She taps her carefully shaped nails on the table, looks at me, and again settles her gaze on the spot where a new generation of her own family is evidently growing. She smiles, tight and stiff. “My family has given you people enough already,” she says through gritted teeth. Her hands go still. Her eyes, spine, and voice harden in tandem with the darkening wafts of murky grey around her head. “And what do we get in return? Indignation. Ingratitude. Entitled have-nots with too many kids and not enough sense. Gutter snipes stretching out filthy hands, asking for more.”

From somewhere in the bowels of the groaning old mansion, Char hollers in a fake punk rock Londoner brogue, “Oy! Auntie! Biscuits? Thas what we want! Bloody biscuits!” Crashing and thumping ensue, until Char emerges with a handful of Fig Newtons. She plunks down beside me, lips smacking, crumbs tumbling all over the pristine Moroccan rug. The concrete edifice around Sarah Spenser’s head clamps down on any trace of emotional ether, hiding the little flecks of humanity I was hoping to draw out. I have ­seven minutes or less, and one final card up my sleeve.

“You do know that Alec isn’t really my father, right? That your father is my father. That we are sisters.”

I wait for the cracks. For a gush of raw green feeling. I wait for her to realize with crystal clarity that I’m trying to reach across the gulf between the Spensers and the Fortunes, the divide within myself, with some truth and intentions that might let our family tree grow into something beautiful and new. Instead I’m slapped with a red hot bolt of rage.

“What is this, more blackmail?” she snaps, her perfect jaw clenched and her voice, low, seething, slicing. “I suspected as much. I just wasn’t sure what kind of salacious rumour you and my brother had concocted.”

“No,” I say. “But maybe telling the truth about our families is the first step to building something better for us all. For future generations.”

“Unless blackmail is what you prefer?” Char says.

“Shut your mouth and eat your Fig Newtons,” I growl, again scanning for a trace of vulnerability, emotion, empathy, anything even remotely human in Sarah Spenser’s face or space.

“Hear me when I say this, Mizz Fortune,” she says, everything about her, mean and stony now. “I don’t know who impregnated your slut of a mother, but it wasn’t my father. It probably wasn’t even my idiot brother. And I don’t give two sweet figs about the next generation of lazy ingrates being spawned by the likes of you. Your fifteen minutes are up.” She stands, sweeping an arm toward the door. “This has all been amusing, but my patience ends here. If you don’t leave immediately, I’m calling the police.”