“Well, I don’t know what to do. She’s never cried around me before.”

“Um . . . Freddy, go into my room and get the box of tissues on the dresser.”

“And nothing else!” Toni managed to sobbingly yell after her brother as he charged into Miki’s room. “Just the tissues!”

Don’t worry. Toni had a very good therapist working with Freddy on his stealing issues, too.

“I’m so sorry, Toni,” Irene said, sitting on one side of her. “I didn’t mean to upset you like this. You’re not someone I purposely torment.”

“It’s all right,” Toni said, wiping her face with her hand. “It’s not your fault.”

Miki sat on the other side. “You should go back to Washington. Go tomorrow. Take the job. Your family will be fine here.”

“I can’t leave them,” Toni finally admitted to Irene and Miki—and to herself. “I can never leave them. Ever. First I’m the babysitter, then I’m going to be the spinster aunt, taking care of their brilliant kids one day. My small room filled with the knickknacks brought back by the children as they’ve traveled the world and lived their wonderful lives.”

Irene sighed. “Were you watching the original ‘Brideshead Revisited’ again?”

“I’m going to be the nanny. Left alone in her room, listening to the radio . . .”

“Will Winston Churchill be giving speeches?” Miki teased. “Come on, girl. Buck the fuck up. Your family can only get you down if you let them. Look at my friend Sara. She could have let her bitch grandmother totally destroy her. But instead, she just waited until she died, threw a party slash funeral, then her whole life changed for the better.”

“So you’re saying I should wait until my parents die?” Toni asked flatly.

“It’s a start—”

“No,” Irene argued. “Waiting on death is not an option. Especially since both sets of your grandparents are still alive. But you do need to start weaning your family off your proverbial teat as soon as possible.”

“Ew.”

“They shouldn’t be able to rely on you for their every need, Antonella.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No, buts. This is what I want you to do.” Irene put her arm around Toni’s shoulders. “You are going to stay here with your family this summer. I’m going to ask Ulrich to get you a job at one of his businesses. I know he can find you something. You will take the job and you will do the job. While you work, you will begin the weaning process.”

“They won’t like it.”

“I don’t care. I want you to be happy, and that means you cannot and will not continue to be the Jean-Louis Parkers’ gal Friday. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”

Toninodded, sniffled. That’s when she realized Freddy hadn’t come back yet. “Freddy!”

Her brother charged out of the room with a box of tissues. She briefly thought about strip-searching him, but that seemed excessive. Instead, she yanked a tissue from the box and blew her nose.

“Now,” Irene continued, “because I know how your family can be . . . and by that I mean your mother . . . I’m going to stay with all of you for at least the next month.”

“Aunt Irene, that’s not necessary.”

“It’s not a bother. Actually, I think you’re doing a lot of people a favor.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, my sons will be in Van Holtz cooking camp somewhere in Montana for the next month. For the next two weeks, Holtz and Ulrich are going to be in Germany for that big Van Holtz family meeting and then when they get back to the States, they’re going to Montana for the last two weeks of the cooking camp.”

“What about Ulva?”

“Who?”

Toni smirked. “Your daughter. The one you keep saying is a product of Satan although you also say you don’t really believe in the Judeo-Christian belief system.”

“Oh. Her. The demon child is going with her father to Germany. Whether she goes to cooking camp, I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“So . . . who am I helping by keeping you here?”

“The Pack back in Washington. Apparently they find me a little terrifying and off-putting. I’m not sure why. I have no claws. No fangs. I guess, technically, I could set them on fire with that cream I accidentally made a few years back, but it’s not as if I’d ever do that . . . unless, of course, I had to.” She glanced off, shrugged. “But I haven’t had to . . . so why worry?”

Toni and Miki locked gazes, then quickly looked away because they didn’t want to explain to Irene why they were laughing. No. Explaining that wouldn’t really help.

Ricky looked at his phone, saw all the missed calls from his sister, and turned it off completely. He simply didn’t have the time or energy for this.

Ricky was a big fan of looking forward not back.

He adored his baby sister, he really did. But Lord, she could work an issue. Work it until it was nothing but a nub. Ricky already knew that’s where this was headed. Ronnie Lee would make the whole thing an issue, and Sissy would blow it way out of proportion for no other reason than Sissy liked to blow things way out of proportion.

Still, he’d worry about all that tomorrow. Right now he was going to sit on this couch in the wild dog’s big living room and watch the wild dog’s extremely big TV for a few hours. The house was quiet with most of the dogs bedded down for the night, so Ricky was looking forward to a little alone time.