Free Butchers Hill by Laura Lippman Page A

Tess's mother,
Judith, called her four brothers and they agreed to draw straws for the
dinner. The losers attended, while the others made up credible excuses
for why they could not attend. Even Tess's own father ended
up wiggling off the hook, claiming a work conflict. The Monaghans and
the Weinsteins still didn't get along that well. So the guest
list was limited to Gramma, Uncle Jules and Aunt Sylvia, their daughter
Deborah and son-in-law Aaron, Uncle Donald, Uncle Spike, Tess and, of
course, the guest of honor, Judith, who had organized it all.
    "Where is everybody?"
Gramma asked, as Judith sliced her birthday cake and passed pieces
around the table.
    "Commitments," Judith
said. "People's lives are so hectic now."
    "Well, Isaac and Nathan were
always so driven. That's why they're successful.
But I'd think your husband might have been here, at least.
Don't the Monaghans celebrate birthdays? God knows, they
celebrate everything else."
    "Patrick's taking me to
the Inn at Perry Cabin this weekend." Judith broke off a
piece of cake with her fingers and crammed it into her mouth. She'd
kill me if I did that , Tess thought.
    "A cabin? He takes you to a cabin
for your fiftieth birthday?"
    "It's a five-star
restaurant and hotel, Gramma," Tess said, as her
mother's mouth was still full of cake.
    "Very fancy, I'm sure. I
just can't understand why things can't be like they
used to be."
    Tess could. It wasn't just the
loss of the house, although it had been a wonderful place for parties,
that overgrown Victorian perched on a hill above the Gwynn's
Falls, full of secret places, like an old dumbwaiter and the remains of
a wine cellar. No, it was the loss of Poppa that had changed the nature
of their family gatherings. Overworked and overextended, he had still
managed to throw his love at them with both hands, like a little kid
pushing up waves of water in a swimming pool. Gramma, in defiance of
every known stereotype about grandmothers Jewish or otherwise, had
served inedible food and begrudged them every mouthful. Unless one ate
too sparingly, in which case she was offended.
    "Tessie, you're not
eating your cake," Gramma said now, watching Tess halve her
slice, then divide it again and again. It was hard to find a cake that
Tess didn't love, but Gramma always managed, serving a soggy
pineapple store brand with the consistency of frozen concentrate
straight from the can.
    Judith gave her a warning look. As if Tess
needed to be reminded of the ground rules for this evening: No candor,
no simple truths, nothing that can be construed as an insult. Unless,
of course, you were Gramma.
    "I'm so full after that
wonderful meal."
    "Well, Judith can't open
her gifts until you finish your cake. Would anyone like another cup of
coffee? I'll make some."
    "No!" Judith almost
shouted in her panic to keep her mother from committing yet another
culinary felony. "I mean, I'll make it, Mama. I
know where everything is."
    "Does it look like Judith is
putting on weight?" Gramma asked after she had disappeared
behind the kitchen's swinging door. "Or is it that
dress?"
    You should talk ,
Tess thought sourly, still breaking her cake into crumbs. Grandma
Weinstein was one of those older women who appeared to be all bosom
from shoulder to waist. Tess often wondered if this was the fate that
awaited her own body, no matter how much she lifted, ran, and rowed.
Every day, it seemed, the papers brought more proof that biology was
destiny, that genetics would get you in the end.
    "You're certainly
looking healthy yourself
these days, Theresa Esther," Grandma said slyly. Tess
flinched. Her grandmother's euphemisms had a way of cutting
deeper than anyone else's insults. Needle, needle, needle. It
was like going to a bad acupuncturist.
    "She's a beautiful
girl," said Uncle Donald, missing the subtext as usual.
Funny, in his days as a political fixer, he understood the meaning of
the tiniest gestures in Annapolis, could predict a bill's
fate by the way the speaker