The Long Table
The rain starts as a suggestion — a fine mist that beads on the windshield before Julian's headlights even find the turn-off. By the time his car crests the last hill and the house comes into view, it has thickened into something with intent, streaking sideways across the beams, drumming a slow, deliberate rhythm on the roof of his rented Audi.
He slows at the gate, taking in the place the way he takes in everything: as an asset, a number, a thing to be appraised. Stone facade, ivy creeping up one side like it's been invited too. Slate roof, steep enough to shed snow in winter, though tonight it's shedding rain in silver ropes. Three chimneys. A drive long enough that headlights announce a guest a full minute before they arrive — plenty of time, he thinks, for a hostess to arrange her face.
"Christ, Mara," he mutters to himself, easing the car up the gravel, feeling the tires slip and catch. "You didn't tell me you married a Brontë novel."
He parks beside a stone urn spilling over with something wilted by the season, cuts the engine, and sits a moment listening to the rain intensify against the glass. Then he checks his reflection in the visor mirror — quick, habitual,…
