The Mirror - Page 225

“In a room made for music.” Sonya smiled at him.

Both dogs let out a yip and raced for the door.

“That’ll be Owen, and dinner.” Cleo stepped back to the doorway, waited. “We’re in here,” she called out when he came in with a bag from the Lobster Cage and Jones. “With a new addition.”

He walked back, passed the bag to Cleo, then studied the portrait.

“Marianne Poole. Very Scarlett O’Hara.” His gaze shifted to Sonya, held. “What’s up? Dobbs give you trouble?”

“Not very much.”

“I’ve had women cry over me, and on me, so I know what one looks like. What’s up?”

“So gallant of you to let her know she looks like hell.”

“I didn’t say she looks like hell,” he corrected Cleo. “Exactly,” he added, and made Sonya laugh.

“And somehow still my favorite cousin.”

“So, again, what’s up?”

“We’ll tell you over dinner—outside. It’s too nice for in. I have crying jag face because I had a crying jag. And they make me hungry.”

“Works for me.”

While they ate, and the dogs roamed, and the cat watched, Owen listened.

And said little until the end of it.

“You okay now?” he asked Sonya.

“Yes.”

“It had to be a jolt, seeing him like that. Like your father.”

“They were so alike. I’ve seen pictures of both of them now, but this was… more.”

“He said something to me, after Hugh moved to New York. How I was lucky I had a brother I was close to. Even though we wouldn’t be in the same place, we’d always have that bond, growing up together, sharing memories and all that. Hugh and I always got along, mostly anyway. He said how odds were we’d make each other uncles one day. How being an uncle was close to being a father.”

Owen winced as Sonya’s eyes filled. “Oh man, don’t start up again.”

“Just a little. It’s a good thing to know. They couldn’t be close, but they knew each other. Through the mirror. I think that mattered to both of them.

“It’s a good thing to know.”

Chapter Thirty

On a bright, breezy Saturday morning, Cleo launchedThe Siren.

She took the cat, and, at her insistence, Sonya took the dog.

As Cleo drove to the village, Sonya cast another dubious glance in the back, where Pye curled on the seat and Yoda planted his stubby front paws against the partially open window to catch the air.

“I’m really not sure, especially this first time, it’s the best idea to take them on the boat.”

“We all go. It’s going to be a moment.”

“Yeah, but what kind of moment? Joy and delight, or chaos and capsizing?”