The Crow of Connemara by Stephen Leigh Page B

glanced across the table to him, his brother gave him a quick wink, almost as if he knew what Colin was holding back from the conversation. “I don’t think you can avoid that. I know that when Dad and I were in Paris for a two-week conference a couple of years back, it completely altered my attitude toward how food is prepared and presented. Speaking of which, this chicken’s delicious, Mom. Did you do something different with it?”
    As the talk around the table turned to the meal and its preparation, Colin shot a look of gratitude to Tommy, and Jen softly kicked his shin under the table. She leaned over to him. “You see, Tommy inherited Dad’s ability to deflect Mom. You and I just let ourselves get dragged into those arguments with her.”
    â€œAnd you’ll get into another one if the two of you don’t keep your voices down,” Aunt Patty commented softly from the other side. “Remember what she’s been going through these last few days, and will be going through in the coming ones. This hasn’t been easy on anyone, and especially not for her.” Then she smiled toward Colin’s mother, a bite of chicken on her fork.
    â€œYou really need to give me your recipe, Mary,” she said, more loudly.

    â€œLeave the dishes,” Colin’s mother said. “Let’s go into the back room—I had Beth set up the coffee urn, there’s cake, and I brought up a bottle of your father’s whiskey from the office, too. We can . . .” Colin saw her hesitate as moisture visibly filled her eyes. “. . . talk about what we need to discuss more comfortably there.”
    The back room had been a combination rec room and library when Colin had lived here. It hadn’t changed a great deal. The books were still there, hardbacks arranged in colorful rows along the shelves. There was a new flatscreen TV, much larger than the television that had been there when Colin left for Seattle. The game console that had sat next to the television back then seemed to be missing, and the board games were stacked on the top shelf, something for Beth to dust. The two tables that had filled the center of the room were gone, replaced by large, plush leather chairs and a small couch under the window, all arranged in a rough conversation circle around the room. His mother and Aunt Patty took the couch after getting coffee and a plate of the cake. Tommy half-filled a tumbler with whiskey: Connemara Cask Strength, Colin noted. “Colin?” Tom asked, lifting his glass. “Jen?”
    Jen shook her head. “Sure,” Colin told him.
    â€œIce?”
    â€œNeat, please.”
    Tommy handed Colin a glass heavy with amber liquid. He swirled it around, sniffing the fragrance that held just a touch of peat smoke. He sipped. “Thanks,” he said. Tommy nodded, then took a chair next to Harris, who was also nursing some of the whiskey. Harris leaned over to talk earnestly in Tommy’s ear, with Tommy shaking his head. Jen sat in the chair next to Colin. For several seconds, no one said anything, the air filled with the clatter of forks on plates.
    It was Tommy who spoke first.
    â€œEveryone’s spoken to the doctors, and now Colin’s had his chance as well,” he said. Colin thought he saw Harris make a moue of distaste as Tommy spoke. “Sad as it is, we all know what we’re looking at, and I’m sure we all have opinions as to what’s the best thing to do. But personally, I don’t think it’s a group decision. Mom, it’s yours to make, and I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we’ll stand by that decision, whatever it is.”
    Colin saw tears gathering in his mother’s eyes again as she set down the cake, untouched, on the coffee table in front of the couch, and the sight made him feel guilty for not wanting to stay here with her. As difficult as the situation was for him or for Tommy