Brew Unto Others by Sandra Balzo

Author:Sandra Balzo [Balzo, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2024-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Eleven

‘Half-sister, to be precise,’ Melinda continued.

Looking at them side by side from across the coffee table, I had to admit there was a resemblance. Melinda’s hair was darker than Arial’s reddish-brown, but along the same lines. Build – both petite. And both very attractive, as evidenced by the stare of a young man passing through the lobby.

Sarah glared at the man. ‘What are you looking at?’

The guy blinked twice and then wisely scurried away, rubbing his fashionably stubbly chin.

Sarah turned on Melinda. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-eight,’ she said.

‘Three years older than me.’ Arial was studying her face. ‘Who is your father?’

‘Jonathan Springbok,’ Melinda said.

‘And you think he’s also Arial’s father – why?’ Sarah asked. ‘Did he tell you he and Ruth had a relationship?’

‘One-night stand,’ Arial corrected. ‘Or at least that’s how the story was always told to me. One-night stand with some computer guy.’

Which was why Arial’s name was spelled with an ‘a’ like the computer font, instead of an ‘e’ like the mermaid. It was Edna’s little joke, according to Sarah, intended to remind Ruth of her indiscretion. Fun family.

‘ … Father was attending a tech thing at the Monterey Convention Center that December, almost twenty-six years ago,’ Melinda was saying. ‘Apparently it was part conference, part holiday party.’

‘Would you have been there for the holidays?’ I asked, turning to Sarah.

‘The year Arial was conceived, I assume we’re talking about? No, but Edna and Ruth were.’

Arial cocked her head to regard Melinda. ‘Does your family live in Monterey?’

‘No, we were in Portland at the time. My dad just flew down for the conference.’

‘Does your “dad” know he got Ruth pregnant?’ Sarah asked. ‘Ruth must have told him about Arial.’

‘No, and no.’ Melinda shifted to face Arial dead on. ‘I’m so sorry to spring this on you.’

‘You could have picked a better time.’ First Arial’s grandmother dies, then her mother falls into a coma. And now a supposed sister appears out of nowhere? Even in a dysfunctional family, this was a bad week.

‘I’m sorry,’ Melinda said again, tears rising in her eyes as she pulled the paper out from under her coffee cup. ‘But I just found out myself. When I read Edna Mayes Kingston’s obituary in the local paper …’

Arial glanced at me and then back to Melinda. ‘That’s the article in the Carmel paper. I thought you live in Portland.’

‘I lived in Portland as a kid. I went to school at CSUMB – that’s California State University of Monterey Bay – and stayed there for a job.’

‘Dad has a soft spot for Monterey?’ Arial’s tone dripped sarcasm.

‘Dad is dead,’ Melinda said, looking down at her hands. ‘He never left Monterey that December.’

We were on our second press pot.

‘Let me get this straight,’ Sarah said. ‘Your father died in a car crash the last day of the same conference that Arial was …’

‘Conceived,’ the fetus supplied.

‘Crossing the street early the next morning to catch the shuttle to the airport,’ Melinda confirmed. ‘I was two, so obviously don’t know first-hand, but my mom said she left me with my grandmother and hopped on a plane to Monterey.

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