Three Fates

“I’m sorry. If you want, I’ll call Father and ask him to meet you there.”
    “Never mind.” Wrapping martyrdom around her like a stole, Alma walked to the door. “Obviously nearly dying in childbirth, then devoting my life to your health and well-being aren’t enough to have you give me an hour of your time when I’m ill.”
    Tia opened her mouth, then swallowed the placating, agreeable words. “I’m sorry. I hope you feel better soon.”
    “Boy, she’s good.” Cleo came out of the kitchen the instant she heard the front door close. “I mean, she’s the champion. Hey.” She walked over to hook an arm around Tia’s waist. “You’ve gotta shake it off, honey. She was doing a number on you.”
    “I could’ve gone with her. It would only have taken a little time.”
    “Instead you stood up to her. A better choice, if you ask me. What you need is some ice cream.”
    “No, but thanks.” She took a deep breath, felt it catch near her sternum, but resolutely pushed it out. Then turned so she could face all of them at once. “I’m embarrassed, I’m tired, and this time I do have a headache. I’d like to apologize for the entire business, all at once. And I’d like to see the Fate, examine it, hopefully verify it before I take some medication, get dressed and go downtown to see my father.”
    Malachi held up a hand and showed her the statue his brother had given him in the kitchen.
    Without a word, Tia took it into her office, to the desk. There with her glasses perched on her nose, she studied it under a magnifying glass. She felt them hovering behind her as she continued her studies. “We’d be more certain if my father could examine it or, better yet, give it to an expert.”
    “We can’t chance that,” Malachi told her.
    “No. I certainly won’t risk my father by connecting him. These are the maker’s marks,” she said, tipping the base up. “And, according to my research, they’re correct. You and Gideon are the only ones here who’ve seen Clotho. I’ve only seen photographs and artists’ renderings, but stylistically this is a match. And you see here . . .” She tapped the tip of her pencil on the notches, right and left on the base. “These slots connect her, the middle sister, with Clotho on one side, Atropus on the other.”
    She glanced up, waited for Malachi to nod. She took a tape measure out of the drawer, noted down the exact height, width. “Another match. Let’s check weight.”
    She took it into the kitchen, used her scale. “It’s exact, down to the gram. If it’s a forgery, it’s a careful one. And the odds of that, given its connection through Cleo, are small. In my not so considered opinion, we have Lachesis. We have the second Fate.”
    She set it on the counter, slipped her glasses off and set them beside the statue. “I’m going to get dressed.”
    “Tia. Damn it. Give me a minute,” Malachi said to Gideon, then went after her.
    “I need to take a shower,” she told him and would have closed the door in his face if he hadn’t just pushed it open. “I need to change and figure out what I’m going to tell my father and what I’m not going to tell him. I’m not as skilled in this game-playing as you are.”
    “Are you embarrassed we made love, or embarrassed your mother knows of it?”
    “I’m embarrassed period.” She turned into the bathroom, took a bottle of pills out of the medicine cabinet. She took one of the bottles of water she kept in the linen closet and downed a Xanax. “I’m upset that I had an argument with my mother and sent her away unhappy with me. And I’m trying not to imagine her collapsing on the street because I was too busy and disinterested to go with her to her doctor’s appointment.”
    “Has she ever collapsed on the street before?”
    “No, of course not.” She got out another bottle of pills and took two extra-strength Tylenol for the headache. “She just mentions the possibility of it often enough so the image is always fresh in my mind.”
    With a shake of her head, she met his gaze in the mirror. “I’m a mess, Malachi. I’m twenty-nine years old, and I’ve been in therapy for twelve years next January. I have regular appointments with an allergist, an internist and a homeopathic healer. I tried acupuncture, but since I’m phobic about sharp implements, that didn’t last long.”
    Even thinking about it made her shudder a little. “My mother’s a hypochondriac and my father’s