Free Romancing the Dark in the City of Light by Ann Jacobus Page A

have to do with the stroke?”
    “He had certainly been drinking that day.” She pauses. “He … may have had a reaction to some meds he was taking. And he fell, too.”
    “So—wait. Did the stroke cause the fall?”
    “We don’t know.”
    “Then he went into a coma.” Summer’s feet are planted on the gray carpet, hands back on her hips.
    “He did.”
    “And no one found him for a while.”
    “Yes.” Mom bows her head. She had been at the country club the whole day. Scores of witnesses.
    Summer presses, “So what are you saying?”
    Mom closes her eyes. “His death was complicated.” She sets the curling iron down, then turns to look at Summer in the flesh. “His depression, which he refused to deal with, affected everything. His drinking. How he took care of himself—or didn’t.”
    Mom raises her eyebrows at Summer. Summer’s own eyes in the mirror are wide with surprise. “He was depressed?”
    “I thought you knew this.” Mom frowns.
    “I am not Sylvia the Psychic!” Summer explodes, throwing up her hands. “You’re the only one who could tell me and this is the most time we’ve spent under the same roof for decades! Plus you never will discuss any of this.” In truth, she had suspected that Dad was depressed, as a therapist at St. Jude’s suggested, but it’s still weird hearing it now. In the context of his death.
    Mom forces her breath out her nose. “Wally wrestled with depression off and on since he was a teen.” She pauses and looks at Summer pointedly. “It runs in his family.”
    “Wasn’t he getting treatment?”
    “Dr. Kong prescribed him antidepressants, but he wouldn’t take them properly. And, there were his issues with Grandpa.”
    “Yeah, why was Grandpa so mean to Dad?”
    “Mainly because your dad tried to stand up to him,” Mom says with a sigh. “Grandpa insisted that Wally take over the business, and then later humiliated him by stripping him of authority and all his shares in the company.”
    “Grandpa took Dad’s shares in the company away?”
    “Yes. With a bunch of expensive legal wrangling. And put them in trust for you.”
    “Those were Dad’s?” It’s a punch in the jaw. Summer sits down on the hydrangea-blue upholstered bench.
    Mom shakes her head and says softly, “He just seemed to lose all energy and will.”
    “You could have saved him. You should have had his back!” Summer’s voice quavers.
    Mom glares at Summer in the mirror again. “I tried dozens of time to get him to help himself.”
    “I mean you should have been home. Found him sooner.” Now Summer’s voice cracks and she furiously blinks away the burning in her eyes.
    “I’m sorry I wasn’t.” Frowning, Mom picks up a sleek silver case of blush, and brushes some on her cheekbone. “The tickets are on the front table.”
    Mom is not sorry. She packed Summer off and moved to Paris so fast, it blew Summer’s hair back. But she’s too tired and dispirited to generate any snarky comebacks.
    “Have a nice trip, Mom.”

SEVENTEEN
    Summer and Moony stand in line outside the wall of the US ambassador’s residence on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honor é across from sleek haute couture and jewelry boutiques. Oversized luxury cars disgorge their multinational, expensively clad passengers. Students and bourgeois alike must go through security.
    Moony’s wearing a blue-striped button-down shirt and a forest-green sweater, grinning and bouncing like a kid. It makes her smile. She wasn’t sure if he’d turn up or not and has to admit she would have been crushed if he hadn’t.
    Please don’t let me mess this up, she thinks, standing as close to him as she can without being creepy.
    “You’re quiet today,” says Moony.
    “Am I? This is a long line.”
    “Everything okay?”
    “Absolutely.” She touches her nose ring.
    “You look great,” he says.
    She smiles. She’s wearing a skirt that minimizes her butt, and a pair of Mom’s smooth leather boots. “You brought