So now they didn’t talk. I suggested opportunities to both of them to heal the breach, but three years had passed and I suspected thirty more would before Georgia would show at Mom’s grave and spit on it.

“No. I. Would. Not,” Mom answered my question.

Obviously, she felt the same way.

I sighed.

“Would you like me to have my driver come to get you?” Mom asked frostily.

Her driver was also her “driver” seeing as he or she too would likely be replaced in a few months (or weeks).

“I can get there myself, Mom. Thanks,” I replied.

“Good. Then see you at seven o’clock Wednesday at the restaurant. Good-bye, Olivia.”

There was no, “In the meantime, how are you?” Or, “What’s my girl doing for fun these days?” Or, “Are you, by chance, seeing someone?” Or, “My darling girl, I’m worried about you. You’re thirty-one years old and you haven’t had a steady boyfriend since your father tortured that handsome blonde man and did what he did to you when you were twenty-five. I’m aware you can be alone, but I don’t want my daughter to be lonely.”

No, none of that.

Mom just disconnected.

I felt no loss that my mother didn’t care even a little bit about me, taking me to dinner because it was her duty, something she’d tell her friends about, woe-is-me’ing about my weight, my hairstyle, my manicure or whatever she found fault in.

I was just grateful the call was over.

I was in the kitchen looking into the refrigerator and considering calling Bistro Vendôme to see if they had a table for one open when my phone rang again.

I moved to the counter to look at it.

The screen said Georgie Calling.

Normally, I did not avoid my sister’s calls.

That day, however, my father had shot Green. Green had then been transported to Dr. Baldwin who took care of his wound for ten thousand dollars in cash. After that, Green had either disappeared or begun to make overtures to Marcus Sloan or Benito Valenzuela.

None of this would please my sister Georgie.

“Hey,” I greeted quietly.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she replied.

I leaned into a hand on the counter. “I walked in, Dad shot him. There was nothing I could do.”

Even with my life as it was from the minute I could cogitate, it still was not lost on me how completely insane it was that anyone would utter those two sentences, including me.

“Your boys get an order from Dad, they tell you. They don’t just show up at Dad’s office and tell him shit he already knows, pissing him off enough to grab his fucking gun and take a shot at one of his own men.”