All the Pretty Poses Read Online Free

a little coward and how he used to indulge your silly
fantasies. No, I haven’t forgotten how much time you spent with my
brother. But I had thought that maybe you’d learned better
judgment since you were that foolish boy.”
    “Better judgment?” I ask, biting my tongue
and keeping to myself all the other things I’d like to say. I would
never disrespect my uncle by making a scene at his viewing.
    “Yes, than to come back here,” he
sneers, his disdain for Bellano clear. He stopped thinking of it as
his home place the day Malcolm moved back in.
    “Not all of us hated it here,” I tell him,
forcing my lips into a tight smile so that no one else can see the
strain between us.
    “Not all of us were ignorant children.”
    With great effort, I hold my smile in place,
nodding formally to him before I give him my polite response. “If
you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go pay my respects.”
    I don’t give him a chance to answer. I simply
continue on my way as though he never stopped me.
    I make my way to the front of the room, to
the coffin. I feel a pang of regret that there’s no one standing in
a receiving line in front of it. My uncle was a widower with no
children. It was just him and Tanny. And me. Until I left him all
those years ago.
    As always when I think of it, bitterness
burns in my gut. Bitterness toward my controlling father who took
advantage of the impressionable boy he could push around. I only
wish I’d grown my iron backbone a few years sooner. Maybe my uncle
wouldn’t have died alone.
    A vase full of roses sits on a small, round
table at the end of the coffin stand. I take one and walk to my
uncle’s side, laying the rose upon his chest alongside the few
others. He loved roses. For years after his wife, my aunt Mary,
died, he kept up her rose garden, made sure that it flourished when
nothing else did. I’m sure the roses here came from that garden.
He’d have wanted nothing less.
    As I withdraw my hand, my fingers brush his.
They’re cold and stiff. Lifeless. Like my uncle is now. I glance up
at his still face, the angles and planes of it so familiar to me,
so much like my father’s. Only softer. Less rigid. Much like
Malcolm. He was the “human” Spencer brother. My father…wasn’t.
    Still isn’t.
    I feel a gentle hand in the center of my
back. I see a slight woman with short, light brown hair appear at
my left. It’s Mrs. Tannenbaum, my uncle’s housekeeper and his only
real companion since Mary died. She raises watery, soft blue eyes
to mine and does her best to smile. As it is, it’s not much more
than a shaky spread of the alabaster skin around her mouth.
    I bend to hug her delicate frame. The feel of
her arms coming around me is immediately comforting. Just like it
always was, all those years ago. “Tanny.”
    “Harrison,” she replies warmly, squeezing me.
When she leans back, she reaches up to cup my cheek and pat it
gently. “I’m so glad you came.” Tears fill her eyes and I feel
another pang of guilt.
    “Of course I came.” Her smile says she wasn’t
so sure I would, which makes me feel even worse. I clear my throat.
“How are you?”
    “I’m hanging in there. How are you?”
    “I’m well,” I say, examining her face. While
she’s an attractive older woman with her perfectly coiffed hair and
cornflower blue eyes, she seems to have aged a hundred years since
last I saw her. I knew Malcolm’s death would be hard for her.
    “It’s been so long. And it’s so good to see
you,” she declares, her expression flooded with sincerity. “Malcolm
and I missed you so much around here. How have you been? Have you
put on weight?” she asks, backing up to assess me.
    I can’t help but grin. “Since I was nineteen?
I’m sure I’ve gained a pound or two.”
    “You needed to. You were so thin back
then.”
    “I wasn’t that thin, Tanny. I was just
active.”
    “Well, you look healthy and hale now. I’m
glad to see you’re eating well. And still so handsome.