S H A D E S

Starshade

With Helen's arrival, dinner went about as smooth as a flossing with barbed wire and near as painful, all hot looks and scathing silence peppered between stilted conversation. Seeing as this would be the last family meal before tomorrow festivities and the arrival of near a hundred guests, it was a shame to have the evening marred by her company.

No one liked Helen, or looked forward to her company. Only Nate appeared to be entirely ambivalent to her presence, an interesting note I filed away for later.

I often wondered how the hell she'd managed to dig her claws into Collin so deep that he'd foolishly married her after only a three month courtship after his second year at Yale.

If my memory served true, my parents hadn't been particularly pleased with the rushed timing, but the match hadn't caused either of them an iota of concern. Helen came from a prominent family; hitching her name to my brothers made both of our families look good. Even the papers had touted them to be a power couple on the rise.

But that was before Collin had graduated and firmly announced he would not be following in the wake of our father's large, well-connected political shoes. And just like that, Helen's soap-bubble dream of the Whitehouse and Oval office popped before her stunned eyes.

My father's disappointment, however, had been significantly more pronounced and had taken a great deal of time to pass.

With age came wisdom, or so I heard, and so it had with my father, along with a drastic shift in priorities after my mother's passing. Suddenly, the rushing thrill of scaling mountains no longer seemed as important to him as actually living. And seeing him here, surrounded with the lush spread of Ronin Estates-the horses and fields and hay, he looked happier then I could ever recall seeing him in years.

Even while my mother was alive, and that's not to say that they didn't have a strong, happy and loving marriage. But the stress of politics invariably got in the way, took a toll. More than once I could recall them fighting, though the arguments were always short lived, and my parents always managed to find common ground again, I now wondered-had it all been worth it?

To climb so high, only to slid back down to the bottom again and be happier for it? Looking across at him seated at the head of the table-hair long and shaggy, skin reddened from hours in the sun, hands worn and calloused, he was a far cry from the man I remembered as a child. And decided, in his case, yes. It was.

Sensing Tristan's gaze, I glanced across the table to see him watching me intently, with a narrowed kind of focus I know to be so innately him. He was stripping away my layers, peering deep into my naked soul and it killed me to know I could never read him quite the same way.

"Tristan, darling," Helen sang out, waving her hand and around us conversation dimmed. "I must say I am thrilled to see you've joined our little family soiree this weekend. Such a treat to have a man of your accomplishments, isn't it?" she looked around for approval and a few cursory nods tossed her way in sympathy.

"I'm pleased to have been extended the gracious courtesy of an invitation," Tristan answered. Polite, diplomatic. And clearly meant to end the subject, but Helen wasn't through with probing him for more.

"I saw Elaina last week, at that Children's Health fund raiser. The Pediatric one."

Delicately working around his quail, Tristan nodded. We'd made it as far as midway through the entrees before she'd caused a scene, a record in Helen's book.