I found my father, Albert, in the library, sitting in his green leather wingback chair beside the leaded-glass windows. On the small mahogany table beside his elbow, a crystal tumbler of Redbreast whiskey was filled to the very brim, the light from the garden catching the amber liquid.
“Your mother is at her bridge club,” he said, his gravelly baritone not quite matching the rhythm of his breathing. He did not look up from the builder’s prospectus he was holding.
“I didn’t come to see Mother,” I said, staying near the door where the shadow of the bookshelf fell across my shoulders. “I wanted to ask you about the night grandmother died.”
Albert reached for his glass, his thick, spotted fingers brushing the heavy crystal. He did not lift it, but his hand began to tremble, causing tiny ripples to run across the surface of the whiskey.
“That was three years ago, Clara,” he said, his gaze fixed on the mahogany molding above my head. “The estate was settled according to her wishes. There is no reason to drag it up now.”
