Free A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) by Marie Bostwick Page A

she’s just completed a so-called self-portrait—entirely out of bottle caps—and had the audacity to ask if she could hang it up in the foyer! And then, when I suggested it might be more appropriate to hang it in her room, an offer which, frankly, I considered generous, she slammed her door and didn’t come out for an entire day!”
    “You know what they say, Abbie—beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe she was trying to communicate with you, trying to help you understand where she’s coming from. Legally, you’re right, Liza is an adult, but she’s still very young, a teenager, and she’s lost her mother to boot. Heaven knows, I wasn’t the best father in the world, but my Janice and Caitlin turned out all right in the end. The real key to dealing with teenagers is trying to see things from their point of view and being willing to negotiate a little.”
    “I do not negotiate with terrorists,” I declared, only half joking.
    Franklin ignored my comment. “Really, Abbie, would it have killed you to hang her picture where people could see it?”
    “That’s not the point!” I was growing increasingly annoyed with Franklin’s lack of sympathy for my situation. Whose side was he on anyway? “I don’t see why I should have to negotiate a thing. It’s my house, and I like it the way it is. My foyer has appeared in the pages of Architectural Digest . I’m certainly not going to take down my own carefully arranged artwork to be replaced by a collage of Liza’s face composed entirely of filthy, rusting bottle caps. That’s not art, Franklin; it’s self-indulgence, and it seems to me that Liza Burgess has been indulged quite enough already!”
    Just remembering the episode got my blood boiling again, and by the time I’d finished my speech, my voice was raised and I could feel the heat on my face. Charlie Donnelly appeared at the table.
    “Everything fine here? Franklin? Abigail, how is your salmon? Black enough for you?”
    I took a deep breath and forced a smile to my lips. “Just right. If you were to believe my niece, it’s almost as black as my heart.” I laughed, trying to sound lighthearted, but knew I wasn’t convincing. Because I eat at the Grill several times a week, Charlie knew all about the situation with Liza.
    “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to raise my voice, Charlie. It’s just that I’m finding the rigors of surrogate motherhood rather challenging.”
    Charlie smiled winningly, turning the full beam of his Irish charm upon me. “Nothing to forgive, Abigail. We understand each other. You’re just my kind of woman—difficult!” He winked, and I couldn’t help but laugh, meaning it this time.
    “I’m going to run back into the kitchen and order you up your usual decaf cappuccino. That’ll set you right. Anything for you, Franklin? Maybe a piece of chocolate bread pudding? You can’t expect to do a good afternoon’s work on just a salad.”
    Franklin shook his head. “No. Thanks, Charlie. I’m trying to lose a few pounds.”
    Charlie picked up Franklin’s empty plate, brushed a few imaginary crumbs off the tablecloth, and went back to the pantry to make my cappuccino.
    Calmer, in a more modulated tone, I picked up where I’d left off. “Either my sister was the worst mother on earth, raising her daughter to behave like this, or she must have found the child abandoned under a cabbage leaf somewhere. It must be the latter. Though Susan’s faults were many and well documented, even she couldn’t have raised such a monstrous child. Clearly, the girl was a foundling, or there was some mix-up in the maternity ward. I refuse to believe that Liza and I share even a drop of DNA from a common gene pool!”
    “DNA comes in strands, not drops,” Franklin pointed out as he reached into the bread basket and broke off a crust. His unruffled demeanor was irritating.
    “Don’t be so pedantic. You know what I mean. I cannot go on like this. She’s been in my house barely a month,