Misfortune by Nancy Geary

Her girls remained scarred by her decisions. Unless she could think of a way to make amends, her cavernous corpse would be buried with the pain she had inflicted. She wished more than anything that there were some way to undo the past.

Wednesday, May 27
    I hope you like sashimi. I couldn’t remember,” Clio said as she pushed the black-lacquered tray toward Blair.
    Blair looked down at the well-arranged assortment of raw fish. “I love it. I didn’t know there was a good place to get Japanese food around here.”
    “There isn’t.” Clio picked up a small piece of raw tuna with her chopsticks, dipped it into a shallow porcelain dish of soy sauce, and ate it. “Hannah took some lessons and makes it herself. She gets great fish out here, as you might expect, but we bring the seaweed, wasabi, that sort of thing, out from the city.”
    Blair liked that people from Manhattan referred to it as “the city,” as if there were no other place in the world that qualified as such and that she, as part of an elite group, knew what the reference meant. Blair looked at the pickled ginger, arranged carefully into the shape of a rose. “Hannah is a great cook.”
    “She is. We’re lucky to have her.”
    Blair liked Hannah. Unlike most of Richard and Clio’s servants, who came and went before Blair even learned their names, Hannah seemed a permanent fixture, having been in the Pratts’ employ for the last twenty-two years. No more than five feet tall, she looked nothing like an established cook in an affluent household, capable of tending to the culinary needs of the Pratts and their many house-guests. She wore her blond hair in a ballerina’s bun, tight at the back of her head with each stray wisp rendered immobile from hairspray and styling gel. She had bony hands, a thin nose, and a pronounced clavicle that protruded through her cotton uniform, leaving Blair to wonder whether she ate a single one of the delicious meals she produced.
    “You’re very kind to invite me over. When I called, I’d intended to take you out.” Blair played with the corner of her starched linen napkin.
    “I can’t think of any place in town where I’d want to eat. Practically nothing but potato wedges and oversize hamburgers. The restaurants cater to the tourist palate.”
    “This is much nicer,” Blair agreed. She swallowed hard, trying to rid herself of the lump building in the back of her throat. She diverted her gaze from the well-laid table in front of her and looked about the Pratts’ oak-paneled library. Double-lined damask drapes partially covered the arched windows and spilled onto the floor. A pair of love seats covered in chintz, and two Chippendale armchairs formed a seating arrangement around the fireplace. Over the stone mantel hung an oil painting of Clio that Richard had commissioned shortly after their marriage.
    The round skirted table where the two women sat could fit up to six for family meals and intimate, informal dinner parties. Blair remembered evenings seated in the very same chair, staring through the twin flames of the candelabrum at her father across the table. Clio sat to his right, Frances to his left, Justin, Blair’s half-brother, next to his mother. The light flickered off the King George– patterned Tiffany silverware as her father ate steak au poivre and creamed spinach. “My family all together in this wonderful spot with delicious food, what more could a man want?” Richard asked this rhetorical question more than once. Each time Clio smiled as if she had everything in the world to do with his state of bliss and rested her hand on his. He turned, looked at her, and smiled back.
    To Blair, this repeated interchange seemed deliberately intimate, an effort to distance his two daughters. Watching their obvious affection, Blair had the overwhelming urge to shout,
You could ask for a lot more. Just because someone looking through the windowpanes might see a scene of apparent domestic serenity, looks are