Free Fragile Beasts by Tawni O’Dell

calculated that by coming here to see her daughter she will save herself some time; exactly how much she’s not sure. The inability to do the math sounds like Rae Ann, but paying an impromptu, nonobligatory visit to me does not.
    Yet here they are, the two of them emerging from Cameron’s big black Cadillac.
    Shelby’s sisters are away at their respective colleges.
    The oldest, Skylar, is a self-absorbed, stunning blonde with the vulgar vocabulary of a cranky pop star.
    Starr is the middle daughter, the troublemaker, the car crasher, the marijuana smoker, the caught-naked-with-a-boy-in-her-parents’-bed-all-before-the-age-of-seventeen daughter. She shares her father’s tendency to pick fights and Rae Ann and Skylar’s fair coloring but not their shiny glamour. She’s the final member of the blond trifecta: mother, daughter, and holy terror.
    “Hi, Aunt Candy,” Rae Ann calls out, waving wildly with one hand and clutching her hideous Chihuahua with the other.
    I try to arrange my features into something approximating a smile, but I’m afraid the best I can do is a grimace.
    There have only been three people in my life whom I’ve allowed to call me, “Candy.” Rae Ann is not one of them, but over time I gave up trying to get her to call me Candace because I realized she’s simply incapable of it. She’s one of those people who must give everyone a nickname.
    Shelby bounds down the steps, squealing, “You brought Baby.”
    I can’t watch. I greet my nephew instead.
    “Hello, Cameron.”
    “’Lo Aunt Candace.”
    He comes lumbering toward me. His gait is less plodding than it used to be now that he’s lost weight due to his recent illness, but he will always have the slow, heavy stride of a man who feels he’s too important to hurry for anyone.
    He underwent a kidney transplant last year, and his recovery has gone well. He came to see me here a few days before his surgery. It was the only time I can remember seeing fear in his face since he was a boy, and I was pleasantly surprised to realize that it wasn’t death that frightened him but what was to become of his father’s empire. He didn’t want to leave it to me because he doesn’t like me and because he believes Stan has already given me more than I deserve. Leaving it to Rae Ann would be like leaving a vineyard to an Eskimo. Shelby is the only one of his daughters who’s showing any promise, but she’s much too young to manage such a far-reaching fortune. Besides, like any king, he has always regarded his daughters as nothing more than bait to lure other rich men’s sons into his family to help manage his affairs until his grandsons can take over. He’s never considered any of the girls potential queens.
    He gives me a doughy hug.
    “You’re looking good, Aunt Candace.”
    “So are you. How are you feeling?”
    “Never better,” he replies, slapping his barrel chest in a pastel-striped polo shirt I’m sure Rae Ann picked out for him along with the khaki pants.
    He smiles and for a moment, I see Stan in his face. In the past I was never able to completely hate him because of that resemblance; now it’s one of the reasons why I do.
    “That’s good to hear. Come and sit down.”
    We make ourselves comfortable on the porch.
    Dusk is settling over the valley. The sky is streaked with pink and primrose. I’ve already had Luis light the many candles I keep on the porch. Their flames flicker inside their jewel-tone mosaic globes, casting shards of bright color everywhere like a shattered church window.
    Shelby and Rae Ann join us, Rae Ann resplendent in a short-sleeved, mint-green pantsuit with white piping that shows off her tan and her figure.
    She leans forward to give me a hug, and I come face-to-face with Baby hanging limply from her well-manicured hand, shivering and bulbous-eyed.
    “Here,” she extends him toward me once she stands upright again. “Speak to him in his native language.”
    “I don’t speak rat.”
    “I mean