Defender

“Yes, well, she waited to get married and she found Daddy,” Sari said quietly. “So there goes your fairy-tale ending. I remember her more than Merrie does. She was unhappy. She tried not to let it show, but it did. Sometimes I found her crying when she thought nobody was looking. And she had bruises…”

“Don’t ever speak of that where Mr. Darwin or even Mr. Paul could hear you,” Mandy cautioned, looking frightened.

“I never would,” Sari assured her. She grimaced. “But it’s like living in prison,” she muttered.

“A prison with silk hangings and Persian carpets,” Mandy said mischievously.

“You know what she means, Mandy,” Merrie piped in as she finished the last of her cake. “We aren’t even allowed to date. One of my friends thinks our father is nuts.”

“Merrie!”

“It’s okay, he’s from Wyoming,” Merrie said, grinning. “He’s in private school up north somewhere, but he visits a cousin here during the summer. His name is Randall. He’s really nice.”

“Don’t you dare,” Mandy began.

“Oh, it’s not like that. We’re just friends.” She emphasized the word. “He goes through girls like some people go through candy. I’d never want somebody like that! But he’s very easy to talk to, and he listens to me. I like him a lot.”

“As long as you don’t tell him things you shouldn’t,” Mandy replied.

Merrie’s eyes fell. “I’d never do that.”

Sari put down her fork with a sigh. “Well, it was a very nice lunch, even if it didn’t come with scores of well-wishers and dancing.” She frowned. “Come to think of it, I don’t know how to dance. I’ve never been anywhere that I could learn.”

“We went to that Latin restaurant once, where they had the flamenco dancers,” Merrie said, tongue in cheek.

“Oh, sure, and I could have gotten up on a table and practiced the steps,” came the sardonic reply.

Suddenly a door slammed. Paul came into the dining room with his hands deep in his pockets. His thick, wavy black hair was damp and there were droplets on the shoulders of his suit coat. “Well, it’s raining,” he sighed. “At least it held off until after the graduation ceremony.”

“At least,” Sari replied. “There’s plenty left.” She indicated the remnants of the lovely meal. “And lots of cake.”

He chuckled. “I’m sorry.”

“About what?” Sari asked.

“You should have gone out with your friends for a real celebration,” he said, dropping into a chair. “With balloons and music and drinks…”

“Drinks?” Sari asked with raised eyebrows. “What are those?”

“I had balloons at my fifth birthday party, when Mama was still alive,” Merrie added.

“Music. Hmm,” Mandy said, thinking. “I went to a concert in the park last week. They had tubas and saxophones…”

Paul threw up his hands. “You people are hopeless!”

“We live in hopeless times,” Sari said. She stood up and adopted a pose. “But someday, people will put aside their differences and raise balloons in tribute to those who have given their all so that we can have drinks and tubas…”

The rest of them started laughing.

She chuckled and sat back down. “Well, it was a nice thought. Daddy doesn’t like us being around normal people, Paul,” she added. “He thinks we’ll be corrupted.”

“That would be a choice,” he replied. “I don’t think you get one if you live here.”

“Shh!” Sari said at once. “Don’t say that out loud or they’ll find you floating down some river in an oil drum!”

His eyes twinkled. “We found a guy like that once, back when I was a kid. Me and some other guys were goofing off near the river, in Jersey, and we saw this oil drum just floating, near the shore. One of the older boys was curious. He and a friend went and pried off the lid.” He made a horrible face. “We set new land speed records getting out of there! It was a body inside!”

“Did you get the police?” Merrie asked curiously.

He gave her a long look. “Honey, if we’d done that, we’d probably have ended up in matching oil drums ourselves! You don’t mess with the mob.”

“Mob? You mean, real mob…mobsters?” Merrie asked, her eyes as big as saucers.

“Yeah,” he replied, grinning. “I grew up in a rough neighborhood. Almost all of the kids I knew back then ended up in prison.”

“But not you,” Sari said, with more tenderness in her tone than she realized.

“Not me,” Paul agreed. He smiled. “How about a plate?” he asked Mandy. “I’ve fought traffic all the way from San Antonio and I’m starved!”

“You had the nice big breakfast that I made you this morning,” Mandy taunted.

“Yeah, but all of it got used up listening to that guy who spoke at Sari’s graduation ceremony. Who was he again?” he teased.

“That was one of the finer politicians this state has produced,” Sari informed him haughtily. “In fact, he’s your US senator.”

“In that case, may he return to Washington, DC, with best possible speed and stay there from now on!” he said. “Gosh, imagine having to listen to him drone on for hours in Congress!”

“It beats having him drone on at somebody’s graduation,” Merrie said under her breath. “Oh, sorry!” she told her sister, but she ruined her apologetic tone by grinning.

Sari laughed, too. “I think there’s some basic rule that people who speak at graduation ceremonies have to bore people to death.”

“It would seem so.”

“Who spoke at your graduation?” Sari asked Paul.

“The director of the FBI,” he replied without thinking. His fingers, on the fork he was holding, went white.

“That must have been an interesting speech,” Sari said. Not looking at Paul, she didn’t see the effect the words were having on him.

“I’ll bet he bored Paul out of his mind,” Merrie teased.

Paul snapped out of it. He glanced at her and laughed. “Well, not completely. He had a sense of humor, at least.”

“What did he…oh!”

Mandy turned over the cream pitcher as Sari was about to ask Paul something else about his graduation.

“I’m getting so clumsy in my old age! My poor fingers just won’t hold things anymore! Get us a rag, will you, darlin’?” she asked Sari.