Page 11 of The Mountain Echoes

aria

The house smells like cinnamon and some exotic cheese, as if someone tried to dress mourning up in sugar and charcuterie trays.

The furniture’s been redone since I was here. We have white throws, decorative pillows, and fake hydrangeas on the sideboard. Back then, the ranch house smelled like tobacco, leather, and beef stew.

Papa allowed Mama to mess with parts of the house, but not the living room, and definitely not his office.

This is Celine’s and Mama’s version of a home. Pretty, polished, and hollow as hell.

When I mentioned it to Nadine, she rolled her eyes.“She nagged Rami to death, and as he got sicker, he just gave up. If nothing else, Celine is tenacious, succeeded where even your Mama didn’t. Spent money we don’t have—and for what? So, we can look like we’re on the set of Marie Antoinette?”

I find my sister in the center of the living room—which looks more French than ranch, as Nadine indicated—holding court.

I’ve been met with polite and distant nods, some whispers, both loud and quiet.

“Is she back for the funeral or for good?”

“Only to get the money from the sale.”

“What a mercenary bitch!”

“She’s not someone you notice, is she?”

“Very plain and average.”

“She looks like the bitch Celine says she is. Doesn’t talk, doesn’t smile.”

“She looks nothing like Celine.”

The comments don’t surprise me. But hearing them after a decade away touches me differently, though truth be told, they were pretty standard when I was growing up here.

I left so many years ago, and while I was here, I didn’t have many friends, just Bree and a few others who are no longer in Wildflower Canyon. I am an introvert, and this kind of thing, a wake, where you’re supposed to be hanging out socially with people and making small talk, isn’t something I’m comfortable with.

“I have bourbon for Papa, but I have wine for Mama,” Celine is showing off to Tate Pryor, who is smiling at her.

Tate is my age, but he always looked at Celine, like he does now, as if she hung the moon. Probably crushed him when she married Hudson.

As I think about Celine and Hudson, my heart doesn’t do the usual somersaults it used to when I was away.

Seeing them together seems to have had the opposite impact than the one I assumed it would have. Instead of being reminded of the heartache and the humiliation of losing my fiancée to my baby sister, I feelnothingfor Hudson. Not even disdain—just a numbness.

This is a man I used to know, but no longer do,andI don’t care to know him either.

He’s not the kind of person I like to spend time with anymore. He’s vain. Cares too much about how he looks and what he wears.

He is not loyal—obviously, since he knocked up my sisterafterasking me to marry him. He couldn’t reuse the ring, either—Celine insisted on something bigger. Probably sold mine to fund hers.

I could’ve saved a lot of money on therapy if I’d just come back, I think wryly. On the other hand, it wasn’t his or Celine’s betrayal that struck at my heart; it was Papa’s.

He told me to leave. Asked me to stay away. Never invited me back home.

I step outside onto the porch, let the cold air hit me.

The sky is bright blue—the sun is sharp like it is in the winter here. I hug Nadine’s cardigan, which I borrowed, around me.

“Let’s discuss this after the will reading,” I hear a voice say.

“Well, I know what’s in the will, Mav,” Celine says.