Defender

Sari bit her lower lip. She moved closer. “What do you know?”

“Things I’ll die before I’ll tell you,” the older woman replied, turning pale.

“How do you know them?”

Mandy ignored her.

“Your brother, right?” she whispered. “He knows people who know things.”

“Don’t you ever say that out loud,” she cautioned the younger woman, looking hunted until Sari reassured her that she’d never do any such thing.

“It’s like living in a combat zone,” Sari muttered.

“A satin-cushioned one,” came the droll reply. “If you want an apple pie, here’s a do-it-yourself kit.” She put a basin of apples in front of the younger woman. “So get busy and peel.”

Sari started to argue. But then she recalled the delicious pies Mandy could make, so she shut up and started peeling.

* * *

Graduation came all too soon. The household, except for Darwin Grayling, who was in Europe at the time, went to Merrie’s first at the high school and took enough pictures to fill an album. Then, only a few days later, it was Isabel’s graduation from college. Merrie kept fussing with Sari’s high collar.

“It’s okay,” her older sibling protested.

“It’s not! There’s a wrinkle, and I can’t get it smoothed out!” Merrie grumbled.

“It will be hidden under my robes,” Sari said gently, turning. She smiled at her younger sister. She shook her head. With her long blond hair like a curtain down her back, wearing a fluffy blue dress, Merrie looked like a picture of Alice in Wonderland that Sari had seen in a book. “I like your hair like that,” she said.

Merrie laughed, her pale blue eyes lighting up. “I look like Alice. Go ahead. Say it. You’re thinking it,” she accused.

Sari wrinkled her nose.

Merrie sighed. “He decides what we’ll wear, where we’ll go, what we do when we get there,” she said under her breath, her eyes on their father, standing with Paul near the front door. “Sari, normal women don’t live like this! The girls I go to school with have dates, go shopping…!”

“Stop, or I won’t get to graduate at all,” the older sister muttered under her breath when Darwin Grayling shot an irritated glance toward them at Merrie’s slightly raised tone.

Merrie drew in a deep breath. “It’s Sari’s collar,” she called to her father. “I can’t get the wrinkle out!”

“Leave it be,” he shot back. He looked at his watch. “We need to leave now. I have meetings with my board of directors in Dallas in three hours.”

“That’s your graduation, sandwiched in between breakfast and a board meeting,” Merrie teased under her breath. “At least he came home for your graduation,” she added a little bitterly.

Sari kissed her sister’s cheek. “I was there at yours. So were Mandy and Paul. Now shut up or I’ll never graduate,” came the whispered reply. “Let’s go!” She smoothed down her very discreet black dress, regardless of her own wishes, and started toward the door. She noticed Paul’s faint wince as he saw how she was dressed, like someone out of a very old Bette Davis movie instead of a young woman ready to start graduate school.

She didn’t answer that look. It might have been fatal to his employment if she had.

Graduation was boisterous and fun, despite her father, who sat through the entire ceremony texting on his phone and then conducting a business call the minute the graduates filed out into the spring sunshine.

“Maybe it’s glued to him,” Merrie teased as she and Sari were briefly alone.

“Attached by invisible cords,” Sari replied. “Hi, Grace, happy graduation!” Sari called to a fellow graduate.

“Thanks, Sari! You off to law school in the fall?” she asked.

“Yes. You?”

“I’m moving in with my boyfriend,” Grace sighed, indicating a tall, gangly boy talking to another boy. “We’re both going to the University of Tennessee.”

“Oh, I see,” Sari said, still not comfortable with modern ideas and choices.

Grace made a face. “Honestly, Sari, you need to buy normal clothes and go out with boys,” Grace said, loud enough for Sari’s father to hear.

He hung up his phone and moved to join them, looking expensive and coldly angry. “Are you ready to go, Isabel?” he asked curtly. His eyes never left Grace. He looked at her as if she were some disease he was afraid his daughters might catch.

“Uh, congrats, Sari. See you around,” Grace said, red-faced, and went back to her boyfriend.

“Slut,” Darwin said, just loud enough for his voice to carry and Grace to look both ruffled and insulted. “Let’s go.” He took Sari by the arm and almost dragged her to the waiting limousine, with a flustered Merrie running to catch up.

“I’ll have Paul watching,” Darwin said as Paul put the girls into the back of the limo and stood aside, holding the door, so that Darwin could slide into the seat facing them. The door closed. “I’ll expect you to associate with decent girls. Do you understand? That goes for you, too, Meredith!”

“Yes, Daddy,” Sari said.

“I understand,” Merrie added with a sigh.

The sisters didn’t dare look at each other. It would have been fatal.

* * *

The dinner Darwin had referred to was obviously going to be prepared by Mandy and just for the two women. Darwin had Paul drive him to the airport, where his corporate jet was waiting. Sari and Merrie sat down to a lovely chicken casserole with homemade rolls and even a chocolate cake.

“It’s delicious, Mandy,” Sari said halfway through the meal. “Thanks!”

“Yes, it’s wonderful!” Merrie enthused.

“Some graduation,” Mandy muttered. “Should have gone out with your classmates and had fun, not be stuck here with me and an empty house.”

“You know how Daddy is,” Sari said quietly. “He doesn’t think…”

“He doesn’t care,” Merrie interrupted coolly. “It’s the truth, Sari, you just don’t want to admit it. He doesn’t want us going out with men because we might get involved and tell somebody something he doesn’t want known. He doesn’t want us getting married because we’d be out from under his thumb! Besides, some of that money might go outside the family!”

“I suppose you’re right,” Sari said, tasting her cake. “It’s just, you get used to a routine. You don’t even realize that it really is a routine.” Her eyes twinkled. “Honestly, I thought Daddy was going to have a coronary when Grace talked about moving in with her boyfriend!”

Merrie chuckled. “I know! At least four of my classmates live with boys. They say it’s very exciting…”

“Don’t you even think about it,” Mandy told them, waving a spoon in their direction. “There’s enough wild-eyed girls out there already. You two are going to get married and live happily ever after.”

“You make it sound like a fairy tale,” Sari accused.

“Maybe, but I want more for you than being some man’s temporary bed partner while he climbs the ladder to success,” Mandy murmured. “Your mother wanted that, too. She went to church every Sunday. She believed that people have a purpose, that life has a purpose. She was an idealist.”