"We'd simply move the party indoors, which looks just as impressive, thanks to all your hard work."
"You give me too much credit," said Edith. "With the right amount of funds, one can do anything. And besides, you've been quite a bit of help yourself, you know."
"What you've undertaken here, it's nothing short of a miracle, Mother. And a beautiful one at that."
He looked back towards the house. The stone frames around its bay windows had been cleaned. They stood out like bare bone against brick walls that were now as bright a shade of red as they'd been in his youth. The Rutherford Estate had been restored to its original subtle Jacobean elegance.
"Perhaps," his mother said. "But you know who all this work is really for, don't you?"
"For Father? To lure him home, perhaps?"
Edith waved at the air in front of her as if to swat at a fly. "Nothing of the kind. I'm long past trying to rein in your father. And please. Don't take that as a condemnation of the man. I love him, truly. But we are drawn by different tides, he and I. Who knows? Perhaps we live under different moons. At any rate, we seem to thrive as we are, so I've never questioned it and I won't start now."
Edith mounted the steps. He felt suddenly bashful and red-faced under the full force of his mother's undivided attention.
"Besides, he's doing his best to see to us. All this money he's sent home. He claims it's a sudden run of luck at the tables. But it must be a new business venture of some sort."
"I can't imagine."
"Neither can I. But for now, let us just be grateful. And let us trust the wind to carry him as it always does. But let us also be clear about one thing. When it comes to this party, there's only one person I'm doing it for, and that's you, dear boy. Because you asked me to."
"Indeed."
"And I assumed you asked me to because it was important to you. Because something about the whole affair will allow you to let Julie go once and for all."
"Maybe so, Mother. Maybe so."
"Oh, and if you stay the night, there's a gift for you. Enrico Caruso's last recording of 'Celeste Aida,' which I've been told is rather marvelous. It's inside for you, next to the gramophone."
Astonishing how these soft, loving words struck him like a blow to the gut. "Celeste Aida." The opera. Cairo. The feel of her hand in his, turning, seeing her sliding into the box next to him, a magnificent jeweled creature, radiant with an energy that seemed almost otherworldly. And then burned. Devoured by fire.
"Alex? It's the right one, isn't it? Aida. Isn't that the opera you all saw in Cairo? The one you're so fond of?"
Urgency in his mother's voice now. She clutched him by one shoulder, turned him to her. Tears in his eyes. How ghastly. He had never cried in front of his mother in this way, not since he was a small boy.
"Alex. What is it? It's Julie, isn't it? You haven't truly--"
"No, Mother. That's just it. I've already let Julie go entirely. That's part of what ails me now."
"So there is another?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"Alex, I'm your mother. Let the only manner of speaking with which we address each other be the one that's most truthful."
"There is someone. Was someone, I should say. But it appears she's slipped from my grasp as well."
"Oh, dear. Someone you met on
this Egyptian adventure about which you've said so little?"
"Yes."
"I see."
"Do you?"
He was so startled by the catch in his voice, he pulled away from her.