Chapter 10
“He really hit his father.”
Not a true question, but Carol answered anyway. “He did, it seems. The poor cleaning staff will never get rid of all the blood.”
This was said dryly as Carol passed Therese a plate to stack in the cupboard. The radio played over the slight clang of dishes being put away. Along with all that, there was Rindy down the hall, narrating what seemed to be a positively thrilling maritime adventure as she took her bath.
Carol heard the tale with half an ear, decided it still couldn’t hold a candle to Rindy’s previous forays into storytelling. She’d recapped the fight between father and son again for Therese, complete with full choreography, once she was no longer confined to the car. Then, realizing how much attention it got her the first two times, she gave a repeat performance. And another. And another.
Much like the several times they’d seen Angie in Peter Pan, no retelling was exactly the same. Carol had the core facts of it, she was sure, but the details changed. Grandma screaming after Grandpa got hit had become Grandma screaming loud enough that one of the windows almost broke. Harge’s punch to his father’s face went from something Carol could visualize fairly easily (and happily) to a Steve-level punch that left Grandpa’s head spinning, almost literally.
There was more blood each time too, which Carol tried not to dwell on. In any case, she’d seen Harge’s eye, and seriously doubted that it had, at any point, been in danger of falling out.
And now she cleared dishes with Therese while Rindy talked about one-eyed pirates during her bath.
“She’s going to flood the bathroom,” Therese said, placing a handful of forks into the drawer.
Carol shrugged without disagreeing. “Pent up energy. Apparently she’s not been allowed to make a single sound all week.” Carol rolled her eyes to show how seriously she took that claim.
“So, quiet as a Mouse, huh?”
Carol stopped what she was doing, holding a glass in midair and scrutinizing Therese. “Don’t even.”
“What? What did I say?”
Carol thrust the glass at her. “Don’t be smug. It’s bad enough she was so damn nice without you being smug. Nonsense, has me in a horrible mood.”
“Mmm. Maybe it did, for a full five minutes, before you realized the old man got hit.”
Carol couldn’t feign annoyance any better than Therese could feign innocence. She laughed. “Don’t say it like that, it sounds horrible.”
“Because it is horrible,” Therese replied, laughing too.
“You wouldn’t think that if you knew him. He is horrible.”
“I don’t doubt. And now he’s hurt, and it has you in a fabulous mood, so don’t pretend.”
“Fabulous is an overstatement,” Carol said, half-hearted. “You make me sound like the brute of the story, and I didn’t even get to punch him.”
“Which one, Harge or his father?”
“Either,” Carol replied. “This is why I go to Abby, you know. She understands.”
Which was true. Where Therese had been baffled and slightly exasperated, Abby was quick with an “Oh honey, I’m so sorry,” when Carol called to say that she might not be able to hate the new Mrs. Aird.
“I know,” Therese said, still very smug, dimples showing. “You’re so terribly misunderstood. Want to call Abby again after this, tell her I’m the real brute of the story?”
“Brute, brute, brute,” Carol repeated. Then she grabbed a dishtowel, swatted Therese’s behind with it. Drops of water went everywhere.
“Hey!” Therese shrieked, almost loud enough to be heard over Rindy as she laughed.
“Shush,” Carol admonished, tossing the towel aside and pulling Therese against her. They kissed while Therese was still giggling. The song on the radio changed and Carol rearranged her hands, guiding Therese into an impromptu dance.
“Yeah, you’re in a truly foul mood, I can tell.” Therese used her hip to close the silverware drawer, then fell into a more natural rhythm as they moved toward the middle of the kitchen where it was harder to bump into anything. “Hi,” Therese said, all white teeth an dimples, one hand in Carol’s, the other finding the back of her neck.
“Hi,” Carol repeated, holding Therese’s hip, drawing patterns there, over the material of her skirt. “Do you really think I’m awful?”
“I really do.” Therese kissed her again, mostly without laughing this time. “Has that happened before?” she asked, more seriously, but still calm in Carol’s arms. “Harge’s father hitting him?”
Therese was careful, Carol noticed, even with the music and Rindy splashing and yelling about mutinies, to keep her voice low. “Years and years ago,” Carol said, matching Therese’s tone, kissing her forehead. “Before Harge and I met, not enough that he mentioned it often. As far as I know, at least, he hadn’t done it since Harge was fifteen.”
“What happened at fifteen?”
Carol smiled wryly. “Harge says John realized that he was big enough to hit back. I guess he forgot.”
Therese hummed. “Are you okay?”
Surprised by the question, Carol followed the music, gave Therese a little twirl, their bare feet graceful over the tile. “Me? Why not?”
Therese settled again, coming closer this time, her cheek resting against Carol’s chest. “I don’t know. Because it’s complicated, and It would be okay if you weren’t all the way okay?”
Carol was certain that made no sense, but it did. She was, not for the first time, a little scared of Therese’s ability to hear the things she couldn’t say. Only a little. She kissed Therese’s hair, noticed how Therese stayed as she was. The angle meant that Therese couldn’t see Carol’s face, and vice-versa. Was that deliberate? For who’s benefit if it was?
“I suppose,” Carol said, her fingers tracing the line of Therese’s back, “I’m a little jealous.” She wouldn’t have admitted it, except Therese had gone days and days thinking she was jealous for the wrong reasons, and she couldn’t have that. “Not of him and the—Lilah,” said Carol catching herself a bit late. “But that he stood up for her in a way he never did me.”
“Well, his father did call her a Nazi,” Therese said lightly, squeezing Carol closer.
It wasn’t a defense or a dismissal, Carol knew, but permission. It was alright. They were alright. Carol could keep talking without jeopardizing that. “That he did.” She kissed Therese’s hair again, the best she could manage from this angle. “But he called me things too, they both did. And it was barely ever enough to make Harge take my side, let alone fight back like that.” Carol chuckled. “I am awful, aren’t I?”
“No.” Therese gave her another squeeze, the answer definitive. “Not at all.”
“I don’t wish I had him back,” Carol said, because she couldn’t have Therese thinking that for one more second. “I suppose I wish that when I did have him, he’d loved me enough to stand up for me that way.”
He’d probably wanted the same from her. Which didn’t make some of the things he’d done any less unforgivable. But that had always been the problem, one of them at least. They’d loved each other once, she still believed that. Just never in the right way, and never enough.
Therese pulled back enough to look at her. “It’s okay,” she said, a soft smile playing at her lips. “I understand that, I do.”
Carol let out a breath, brought her fingers to Therese’s jaw. Her thumbs traced the edge of that smile.
“And you should know,” Therese said, suddenly serious. “I would absolutely hit a sixty-year-old man for you.”
Carol choked on air, then burst out laughing. “Closer to seventy now,” Carol said between the kind of giggles she was much too old for, “but thank you, darling.”
They both shook, gripping each other tightly. When they fell back into something like a rhythm for their dance, all the tension had left Carol’s body, carried away by the laughter. “I could never dance with Harge like this,” Carol said, no longer scared to talk about him in this way, with Therese.
“No?” Therese’s cheeks were flushed, but her eyes on Carol’s were focused.
You didn’t just dance with Harge. Not just because, and not in the kitchen, in bare feet. Dancing was for best clothes, for perfect steps. Dancing was to be done in a roomful of people in the same fine clothes who’d learned the same steps. It was for showing all those people that their clothes didn’t look quite as fine, their steps weren’t as perfect. Even at their wedding, this was the case. Carol remembered dreading their first dance, knowing that his mother, his whole family were watching. Judging.
She didn’t tell Therese all this. Her desire to talk about Harge only went so far. “He was much too rigid,” she said.
“And what about me?” Therese asked, like she knew there was more to the statement.
They were interrupted briefly by an especially loud splash from down the hall. Therese asked if Rindy was all right. Rindy was a bit too quick to answer in the affirmative.
“She really might flood the bathroom,” Therese said.
Carol sighed. “She might. And you, my dear,” Carol brushed Therese’s jaw again, nuzzled there, “are so deliciously flexible. Which is how the bathroom got flooded last time, I think.”
“Hey, that was your fault, not mine.”
“Sure it was.”
Therese laughed, pressed a kiss to Carol’s mouth. “You want me to go get her?”
Carol sighed again. “No, but you should. If the bathroom’s going to flood, I want it to be worth it.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“We’ll talk about it on Sunday,” Carol said, reluctantly disentangling from Therese so she could finish up the dishes.
Harge would come for Rindy on Sunday night.
Therese helped Rindy find the pajamas she wanted. The bathroom was only a slight disaster. Therese had done worse to it herself the last time she interrupted Carol’s bath.
The pj’s were light and comfortable, with small polka dots. This somehow led to a discussion of Rindy’s teacher, who favored polka dot dresses, and giving out far too much math homework.
“We’ll figure it out tomorrow, okay?” Therese asked, tickling Rindy’s stomach a bit before helping to pull the pajama top over her head.
Rindy giggled and swatted Therese away. “I don’t like math.”
“I know, me neither. But that’s why we’ve got your Mommy to help us, right?”
Rindy nodded, flung herself backward onto her bed. It was very dramatic, and several stuffed animals were forcefully evicted from their home. “Mommy’s okay,” she declared, “but someone else would be better.”
“You mean like a tutor?” Therese asked, picking up the displaced toys before they could disappear under the bed.
Rindy sat up on her elbows, shook her head. “No, like a Southern grandma. We need one of those.”
“Do we?” Therese asked on a laugh. She had absolutely no idea what Rindy was talking about. “Why’s that?”
“They’re good at math,” Rindy said, the most obvious thing in the world.
“Oh?” Therese sat on the bed next to her. “Where did you get that idea?”
“Miss Ava.”
Therese frowned at the mention of Harge’s housekeeper. “Miss Ava was talking to you about Southern grandmas?” she asked, amused and bewildered.
“Yeah Because Daddy got mad and wouldn’t tell me, so I asked Miss Ava because sometimes she tells me things. She told me about the grandmas.”
The frown became something else. “You had to ask Miss Ava something because your daddy got mad?”
“Yup. Because Grandma called Sascha a bad word that I can’t say.” Rindy stopped, considered, rolled across the bed until her legs were in Therese’s lap. She drummed her feet against Therese’s thighs. “Grandma and Grandpa said a lot of words I can’t say.”
“Yeah? Did this happen the last time you visited them?” Therese wracked her brain. There were many, many retellings of that confrontation between the Airds, some of them more coherent than others.
“Yup. I can’t say it, but it starts with a B,” Rindy said, apparently excited to say it without saying it, have Therese guess. “But it’s not the real B-word, the one Mommy and Aunt Abby and Aunt Angie use.”
Therese didn’t know if she should laugh at that, so tried not to. “No?”
“Nope. I guess people say it about Lizzie sometimes, but they’re not supposed to.” Rindy shrugged.
Therese’s stomach sank with the realization of what Rindy probably meant. “Oh,” she said, trying to keep her voice normal. “And you heard that word about Sascha?”
“Yup, from Grandma. Daddy just said don’t say it, he didn’t want to talk about it. But Miss Ava told me a little bit.”
“Did she?”
“Yup. But not that much more than Daddy.” Rindy sounded annoyed. “She said all it means is that Grandma does math faster than a Southern grandmother at a baptism. But she wouldn’t say what that meant,” Rindy rolled her eyes, “and we didn’t do any math at Jake’s baptism, did we?”
“No,” Therese said, catching one of Rindy’s feet when it landed a bit too hard. “No, we didn’t.”
“Anyway,” Rindy let out a long, frustrated breath. “She said Sascha’s my brother, and people are stupid about math, and I should love him and protect him and ignore what dumb people say, because that’s what big sisters do. But I already knew that part from Daddy, and if math is so dumb and people are dumb about it, then why do we have to spend so much time learning it? It’s dumb.”
Therese, more than a little bemused, could only muster a half-hearted explanation before saying she was going to get Carol. Carol still enjoyed brushing Rindy’s hair out, and Rindy never complained, even though Rindy was plenty old enough to do it herself now.
She found Carol in the hallway; mouth curved in an odd smile. “Spy,” Therese accused without heat.
“It’s not spying when it’s your own family. Peggy says.”
“Uh-huh. So, math and baptisms.”
“Everyone does math at baptisms, and first babies always come early.”
Therese frowned. “Rindy didn’t, you said, or Lizzie.”
“Lizzie is a bizarre child,” Carol said fondly. “Look at Jake. Jake was very premature.”
It took Therese an embarrassingly long time to realize that Carol was making a wedlock joke. “Babies and math, it’s worse than living with the nuns again.”
“Yeah,” Carol’s tone changed, almost imperceptibly. “Babies and math.”
“What?” Therese asked, because Carol’s expression had changed too.
“Nothing,” Carol said, distracted and lying. “Just, Harge said the rodent was due in late April.”
Therese let that one go, with some reluctance, knowing Carol was at least trying to do better. “And?”
“And, he shows up on the first of the month. Shows up fat.”
Therese sighed. “Stop calling the baby fat.”
“You haven’t seen him in person, he is,” Carol said. “A month early, you’d think he’d be smaller.”
“So? The dates are just guesses, right? They probably guessed the date wrong.”
Carol hummed, but it was a unfocused, slightly impatient sound.
“Carol,” Therese said, more firmly than she normally would. “Rindy.”
Carol blinked. “What?”
“Go brush Rindy’s hair.”
“Oh. Right. Thank you for getting her cleaned up, darling.” Carol pressed an absent kiss to Therese’s hair.
“Carol.”
“I heard you, sweetheart.”
Carol went into Rindy’s room, leaving Therese nervous and wishing they’d just skipped Rindy’s homework this weekend, left it to Harge or that damn housekeeper.
“Did you really come all the way here just to dig up more dirt on your ex’s new wife?”
Carol glared. It was Sunday. She, Peggy and Jacob were in Peggy’s house. Therese had gone to church with Rindy, Steve and Angie. “Therese hasn’t been to services in awhile. She missed it.”
Which was probably not untrue. Therese and Rindy hadn’t gone since the Sunday before the snowstorm. Therese probably did miss it, despite her protests this morning.
“Darling, please. Don’t hide your nosiness behind Jesus. My wife and in-laws do it so much better.”
Carol scoffed, sipped from her coffee. They sat at Peggy’s kitchen table, with Jake asleep in his bassinet in the living room. “Will you please just tell me what that word is?” It wasn’t her main concern anymore, but apparently she’d have to work up to that.
“Mauschen,” Peggy said. “At least that’s what I gather from your terrible spelling.”
“It’s the language, not me. German spelling is more ridiculous than yours. What’s it mean?” She could’ve asked Rindy what it was Lilah called her just before they left, but she didn’t trust herself to hide her displeasure if the answer turned out terrible. And who was to say Rindy even had the right translation?
“Little mouse,” Peggy said, the corners of her mouth lifting.
Without Rindy there, Carol made no attempt to steel her expression. “Oh God. She’s recruited my daughter into her rodent brood.”
“It’s an affectionate term.” Peggy brought a cup of tea to her lips. “At least Rindy’s not calling her ‘mother,’ or the like.”
Fair point, and Carol acknowledged it. “What’s the word for mother, just in case?”
Peggy shook her head. “No. I will not aid you in mangling yet another language, even if it is German.”
Carol tried to scowl, couldn’t get there. “And the baby?”
“Do you really think I know who his father is?”
“I think you know a terrifying amount about a terrifying number of things.”
Peggy didn’t disagree. “I wasn’t there at time of conception,” was the dry response. “And unlike some people, I don’t record sexual escapades.” She paused. “Unless they involve myself or my spouses. Or unless I’m asked as a favor. In work cases, not unless there’s a necessity.”
Carol stared. “But was there someone, when she was in Texas?”
Peggy shrugged. “No one steady, that I’m aware of. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone. A lot of people have the occasional one-off shag.”
“Did you?”
“I was at war for years before I met Steve. Before that, British prep school.”
Okay then. “So Harge might not be the father?”
“I wasn’t there at time of conception,” Peggy repeated. “I can’t say for sure that the boy isn’t a bastard.”
Carol sat back. “Son of a bitch,” she said, more to herself than Peggy.
“Didn’t you say she seemed quite pleasant?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Mmm.” Peggy sipped her tea again. “Does it matter?”
Carol could’ve laughed. “Of course it matters.”
“How so?”
The edge in Peggy’s voice was barely there, but it was enough to get Carol’s attention, make her heart speed. She barely caught the way Peggy’s eyes moved to Jake’s bassinet, lingered that second too long.
Oh.
Shit.
“Not, no, Peggy. Not for you, or the kids, or Angie.”
Peggy hummed, her face unreadable, and the coffee began to twist unpleasantly in Carol’s belly.
“Not for you,” she repeated. “Not…you aren’t him. Your family isn’t him.” Carol closed her eyes, struggled to form the words. “I spent so much of my life trying to fit into the narrow, perfect little box that he considered acceptable. Him, his parents, they…I’ve told you how they are. And then Therese, my aberrant behavior,” Carol’s voice cracked on the last two words, more anger than hurt. “It matters with him because he’s been throwing my imperfections back at me for years.” At least what he considered imperfections. “I never did the right things, I never fit the right mold. And now he and this woman…” Carol trailed off. “It matters because it’s him. Because he’s such a goddamn hypocrite.”
Peggy seemed to relax. She hummed again, and it was somehow less terrifying. “Well. Harge’s hypocrisy isn’t exactly news.”
“No, but to this extent?” Carol’s heart pounded a faster rhythm just thinking of it. She no longer needed the coffee to wake herself up.
Peggy watched her. “Indeed. And do you have plans for this speculation?”
Speculation, not information. “It’s hardly speculating. Any grade-schooler can do the math. If I’d been paying attention—”
“You would’ve told him what an arrogant, egotistical, hypocritical twat he was.”
Carol blinked. “Probably not in those exact terms, but yes.”
“And will you now?”
“Probably not in those exact terms.”
“I’m assuming you’re familiar with messengers and the hazards of their jobs?”
“What?”
“If the boy isn’t his, and he doesn’t know, do you really want to be the one who gives him that information?”
Harge not knowing was absurd. With the math, with the housekeeper talking to Rindy about it, with his parents being the assholes they were. "My ex-husband may be an idiot in many ways, Peggy, but he’s not an idiot. There's no way he doesn't know that boy isn't his."
"You'd be surprised what love blinds you to. My cousin Johnathon is convinced that somewhere in our history we have Afro-Indian ancestry, because his baby boy came out dark as night." Peggy paused. “Johnathon also took a blow to the head a few years back, and thinks his wife can walk on water, so Johnathon Jr is a Carter."
Carol stared. “Johnathon Jr.” All she could do was repeat it.
“JJ, to the initiated. Darling little boy. Dimples like you wouldn't believe, and gorgeous brown eyes. His skin is dark as I've ever seen anyone's, and his hair is unmanageable as no one will recognize that it can't be done like they do their own hair as obviously he's a Carter and our great-great-great grandmother must have had an affair with an Afro-Indian gentleman back when great-great-great grandpa was a viceroy in the untamed British India."
"A what in the where?”
Peggy waved a hand. "Neither here nor there. Point being love blinds you to anything. Angie's cousin Val thought her man would stick around. He thought he could do math. Turns out he can't count to nine when twins are premature and bolted. I'd feel sorry for the poor man, but he joined the Navy to get away from his parental responsibilities and now there's a child named Paulie in Brooklyn who calls me Auntie."
“You’re making this up.”
“Come to Lizzie’s birthday in July, I’ll introduce you myself.”
Peggy was just as likely to hire a random child, relation or not, to confuse her. “I’ll take your word.”
“Excellent. You would be astounded at what a man is willing to believe about a child. Betty Dugan and I—Mcrae at the time—in a pinch, we once helped a woman convince her beau that some pregnancies only lasted five months. That his baby was quite strong and hardy and was quick to grow, but that nothing was really amiss.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Assume for a moment that Harge is not a complete simpleton. He knows, and you inform him that you have this information about the boy. To what end?”
“What?”
“Why? What would it do?”
The question was almost nonsensical. “Peggy?”
“Assuming it isn’t his…it is. He’s given the boy his name, claimed him. One would think he cares for him, at least.”
Claim. That was Harge all over, his version of love. To love was to claim, to take possession. She’d doubted her theory in its earliest stages, because Harge was Harge. She couldn’t see him claiming something that wasn’t authentically his, someone he couldn’t take personal pride in, credit for. And then she’d thought about how much he’d wanted another child, how much he might like the idea of having another child to mold, one he wouldn’t’ have to share with her.
“He loves him,” Carol said. She’d seen Harge with Sascha. She knew how good he was at playing happy family, at pretend, but his affection for Rindy was never false. She saw the same thing in the way he treated Sascha, didn’t think he was a good enough actor to manufacture that. She believed he loved him, regardless of his other motivations.
“All right, he loves him. So why throw that in his face?”
Carol wondered what was in that tea Peggy was drinking. “I love Therese. I have loved her, all this time, and he’s never missed a chance to throw that in my face. He’s threatened me with it, he—”
“What will you do?” Peggy asked, her voice never rising. “Threaten him with this? I’m afraid that was a one-off card, and I played it. He’s married her, before the birth, even if it was a photo finish. If you and his parents and any grade-schooler can do the math, don’t you think they already have?”
“Don’t you think I have a right to be angry with him?” Carol retorted, not as calm as Peggy. “After all he’s done, don’t you think I deserve one moment of, of…?”
“Revenge?” Peggy offered. “Satisfaction? Yes, I do. I think, at least where you’re concerned, that he is an arrogant, egotistical, hypocritical twat. We’ve both seen a thousand like him, we’ll see a thousand more.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not at all. He’s weaponized your child against you, and that backed you into a corner. Do you really want to do that to him?”
“It’s not his child,” Carol said. The words sounded hollow even to her. “Is this where you give me some grand speech about not stooping to his level?”
“God no. Steve’s the one for high ideals and grand speeches. I’m sure he’s more than earned whatever pain you’d inflict on him. But if you’re going to take a shot, make sure it’s damaging enough to matter. Otherwise all you do is poke the bear, and risk getting bitten. Is it worth it? The math may be suspect, but it’s not secret. You’ve no real leverage on him, you’d just be putting him on the defensive. From what I hear, he’s finally behaving himself.”
“Him treating me like a human being, treating Therese like one, shouldn’t depend on whether or not he’s in a cheerful mood.”
“It shouldn’t.”
Carol’s teeth wanted to gnash together. “But it does.”
“He’s Rindy’s brother. Harge’s son or not, he’s Rindy’s brother, and Rindy is happy with the way things are right now. Do you want to take that away?”
“Don’t put that on me.”
“You’re putting it on yourself. You have the power now. Or think you do.”
“Think?”
“What would putting him on notice do, Carol? Would it change the situation? Would it make him 'behave' more than he is? Will it do anything other than anger a man who's playing nicely for once, and make him into that selfish asshole again?”
“He’s Harge, he’ll switch back soon enough.”
“Probably. Is it worth speeding that process along by days or weeks or months just for the possibility of a few seconds with the upper hand? Let me give you some advice a very smart woman once had to give me. If there isn't anything to be gained by breaking a happy family, beyond your own happiness, then there's no reason to do it. Steve, Steve’s all about truth, justice and all that. But sometimes it doesn't matter what the truth is, or what the truth isn't, sometimes you just have to smile, compliment the baby, and continue on with your life."
They sat in silence for awhile. “So, you’re telling me to shut up,” Carol said finally.
“I’m advising you to consider your options.”
“So you’re telling me to shut up.”
“I’m advising you to shut up.”
Carol was only halfway through her second cup of coffee, but felt herself crashing. "What woman had to give you that advice?"
"My grandmother. Maternal grandmother. I was younger, dumber, more prone to quick anger despite my career at the time."
"Who... what baby did you have to compliment?"
"Mmm." Peggy sipped her tea.
"Peggy?"
"My sister. I was furious and determined to prove she was conceived before my father's second marriage, when he was still married to my mother. I could’ve done it easily enough. I had dates, statements from the servants.”
Of course Peggy had those things. “But you didn’t use them?”
“My grandmother helped me realize that it didn't matter either way, proving it would only hurt my mother, and anger my father, alienate his new bride."
“How so? How did she help you?”
“She told me what I told you. She also said that the goddamn Germans were going to drop bombs on us any minute, and there was no point in me blowing things up first. We could die carrying on, screaming at each other, or we could be civil and have cake. In one scenario, we’d at least die full.”
"What did you do?" Carol asked, as if every word Peggy spoke so casually didn’t produce a thousand new questions.
"I visited their home, held my sister, complimented her, told them she looked like our brother, then went and got sloshed with Steve and the boys."
They were quiet again. The others would be back soon. “Well, fuck,” said Carol.
“Mmm.” Peggy stood from the table. “Shall I dump the coffee and prepare a mimosa?”
Not as strong as she’d like, but it would do. “Please,” said Carol, pushing the half-empty cup toward Peggy. She stood up too. “But I’ll make my own drink.”