Read Online The Last Maharajan (Romantic Thriller/Women's Fiction) by Susan Wingate - Free Book Online Page B

shrugged. She picked up the photo and squinted for focus, for effect.
    “That’s an old one. Where’d you get it?”
    “Mother. She’s going through all of her photo albums, one by one, and splitting them up between us.”
    “That’s fair.”
    Euly neglected to mention her pile was greater and switched the subject. “Hey, do you remember that little girl who drowned?”
    “What little girl who drowned?”
    “You remember. At the Maharajan.”
    Enaya’s eyes opened in recognition.
    “Oh yeah. Wasn’t that awful?”
    “I remember it in stops and starts. Pieces, you know? I think I’ve filled in a lot that may not be right but, then, maybe not. I don’t know.”
    They stopped talking and both seemed to fade into the vision. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I don’t know why.”
    “Death.” She examined the photo more closely as she spoke then handed it back to Euly.
    “Yeah.”
    “No. I mean you’re thinking about death a lot.”
    “I suppose.”
    “Well, you’re living with it aren’t you. You visit her daily, right?”
    “Mother? Yes. I see her every day.”
    “Don’t you think that’s why you’re here really, to get away?”
    “No. No, I’m here because I want to find out what really happened between them. Why they Geoff.”
    Enaya lifted her eyebrows. “I didn’t say anything about Geoff.” Euly looked at her lap and played with her napkin but she didn’t broach the subject. “Look, Eu, they split. Why drum it up again? They were miserable together, remember? They fought all the time.”
    “Do you remember that photo?”
    “Not really. I was like, what, twelve?”
    “Yeah, ten, eleven, twelve, something like that. Oh, and not always.”
    “Not always, what?”
    “They didn’t always fight.”
    “Yes, they did. Always.”
    “Not when we were little. Not when that little girl drowned. They didn’t fight then. It was later when we were teenagers, remember?”
    “Maybe you’re right. It felt like all the time to me.”
    The waiter came back to take their dinner order. Euly ordered something light and Enaya, a steak with au gratin. She always had eaten what she wanted and it never seemed to show unlike Euly who was battling to keep her weight at bay through menopause.
    “Where does it all go?”
    “I work out.”
    After the day’s travel, Euly felt a little tired plus the wine was making its way straight behind her eye sockets.
    “Wine’s good, isn’t it?”
    “They fought all the time.”
    “No they didn’t.”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t remember it that way. I remember mother singing to me in the rocker and you playing with the neighbor boys. Remember that? Little Phil and Butchy? You guys always played Tarzan.”
    “Wow. I’d forgotten that and when you weren’t sick, you were always Jane, remember?”
    “Yeah.” She laughed at the thought. They both did. “You changed.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You got all girly. Look at you. You’re nothing like when we were kids.”
    “Neither are you.”
    “I don’t know about that.”
    “You were always the little feminine princess, remember? Now, look at you. You look like a correspondent in Iraq with that vest and those readers on your head.”
    “Shut up!” Enaya had given her the verbal equivalent of a poke in the ribs.
    “’Here, in Baghdad, the fighting heightens. The hovel behind me looks a lot like my office…’”
    “Cut it out!”
    “’And over here, in my kitchen, a car bomb has exploded, leaving a cabbage dead and hundreds of eggs injured.’”
    “It’s not like that anymore. I’m much neater.”
    “Right.”
    “Really.”
    “Uh huh. You’ve changed. You used to be this tidy, neat-as-a-pin person and now, you don’t care about that.”
    “Not true. I do care. But, there’s not much I can do about it. I’m super busy these days what with mother and everybody, it seems as though dying and obits are constant. Cleaning is about the last thing I can get to. That and