Ruby Red 3 - A Romance for All Time (Complete)

Chapter 27

"What about these?" Ali held out a small velvet box containing a pair of silver cufflinks.

Her mother glanced at the items and after briefly turning up her nose she offered, "Charity."

Lynn had asked her daughter to come over to the house and help sort through her father's clothing and effects. The idea was to divide the contents into two lots, keep and charity. So far there was not a lot in the keep pile.

"Unless Sam would like them?" her mother asked.

Ali tossed the cufflinks into the charity box. She couldn't even remember her father wearing them. With little sentimental value, they were better off going to someone who could use them. The shelter they were donating the clothing and personal items would sell some of the stuff to help cover the day-to-day costs of running the place. Although not officially on the board of the Liberty for All Foundation since moving to New York, Ali tried to support them where she could.

Her mother was folding a bright blue tie before adding it to the others in a large clear Tupperware container in front of her. "When does your plane leave tomorrow?"

"10 a.m." Sam had an event for Leif the following day and Ali had agreed to return to New York City to attend it with him. She was trying to not look at it as a retreat, but with all her options to find a solution to Stinson Studios' money problems gone and the shareholder's meeting looming, Ali felt like a failure.

Pushing those thoughts down deep, she picked up another set of cufflinks. They were gold coins, one a laughing face, the other a crying face. Very theatrical and not at all what Ali thought her father would ever wear. She started to toss them in the charity pile but hesitated.

"Mom, what about these?"

Her mother put down the patterned tie in her hand and crossing the room, almost lovingly caressed the smiling face. "I bought these for your father on our honeymoon. In Venice. I... I used all my pocket money on them. We'd spent the night at the opera and then when we got back to our hotel, well, we created our own rendition of La Traviata."

"Mom, please," Ali tried not to roll her eyes. Still, it was a rare moment, her mother looking wistful and recalling a tender memory with her father.

Growing up her parents had presented a unified front, ever the power couple to the outside world. Behind closed doors, however, they almost led two separate lives. Daniel Stinson let his wife hold her ladies luncheons and go on her spa trips – as long as it didn't interfere with his needs. The times it came down to what her mother wanted versus her father; Lynn gave in instantly.

"Things were good once," Lynn murmured to herself.

Sucking in air, the faint aroma of her father's cologne invaded Ali's senses. It conjured up images of him standing in this room, going through the routine of putting on his cufflinks, watch and finally his suit jacket. Her father's daily suit of armour. Ali wasn't sure what made her ask, the words were out of her mouth before she knew it. "Why did you marry him?"

Never before had her mother looked at her the way she did then. The two women for a moment silently understood each other. Ali getting the confirmation of her suspicions that her mother didn't love her father, hadn't for a very long time. And Lynne seeming to grasp the fact her daughter could see through her well-constructed illusions, past the shiny perception of a happy marriage and through to the reality of a woman trapped in a loveless existence.

Then something shifted. It was as if that look, that moment cracked the façade her mother had been nurturing for years and the thin layer of sugar glass splintered.

For the first time, Lynn let her daughter in. "I didn't really have a choice."

The honesty of Lynn's words hit Ali like a gale wind, and she wobbled. Stepping away from the drawer with her father's jewellery, she sank into the square ottoman in the middle of the walk-in closet. The navy-blue silk material stretched, the raised pattern brushing against the palm of her hand, soft yet rough. Her mother echoed her movements, sitting beside her daughter. Ali held her tongue hoping her mother would elaborate.