Page 101 of What You left in Me

On the drive back, the sun slants. For a second I imagine a different life, in a small apartment with creaky floors, a classroom with posters and yawning teenagers, weekend trips to nowhere, and a future without this ache. For a second, I am so close to wanting it more than I want him.

Then, the house rises at the end of the road, big and dominating, and the second falls away like a leaf that didn’t stick.

Inside, Janice is measuring out pills with the precision of a sniper. She looks up and nods at me like I’m a soldier coming off watch. I open my mouth to ask where Richard is, but she beats me to it, “Richard napped. He ate half a sandwich and tried to bribe me for dessert. All normal.”

I grin. “Did you take the bribe?”

“I took the compliment. The money goes in the jar.” She taps a ceramic hen full of folded fives. “We’ll buy him a ridiculous cake when he’s allowed to have sugar again.”

“Make it lemon,” I say. “It’s his favorite.”

“That’s the spirit.” She hands me a schedule. “Walk him to the conservatory in ten? He’ll listen to you. Or at least pretend to which is the same thing.”

I find Richard in his room with an art book open on his lap and reading glasses perched so low they must be decorative. His face brightens when he sees me, and the guilt that’s been squatting on my chest stretches further.

“Am I being relocated?” he asks as I help him up.

“Promoted,” I say. “To a chair with sun.”

He takes my arm, warm and light. “I dreamed last night that the koi unionized,” he says on the way down the hall. “They demanded fresher peas and a French translator.”

“They’ve always been very continental.”

“Your mother thinks they’re ridiculous.”

“She thinks everything is ridiculous lately,” I say before I can swallow it.

He glances at me, the way a painter looks at the corner of a canvas he’s not sure about. “She’s… carrying a lot, honey. We all are. Be kind if you can.”

“I am trying,” I say, and it is both true and evasive.

I settle him in the conservatory with a blanket and the late light. He dozes a little while I pretend to read the same paragraph six times. Eventually, Mom appears in the doorway, dressed to kill a mood, her phone turned face-down in her palm like it’s a card she’s not ready to play. She just watches us for a heartbeat, then turns away when she catches my eye. It’s likeshe’s trying to avoid me because she knows I have a million questions for her.

Dinner is roast chicken and rosemary potatoes. We eat at the long table that makes everyone look like a painting even when they’re arguing. I set the plates and glasses, glad to have something to do. Mom comes in last, composed, efficient, but distracted. Richard compliments the seasoning and then coughs and makes a face at me when Mom isn’t looking; I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. It feels good to feel something uncomplicated for three seconds. Then, the feeling folds in on itself because Finn’s chair is empty. I haven’t seen him all day. He only comes for me at night and as pathetic as it sounds, I wait for nightfall all day long.

Mom asks polite questions with knives folded into the napkin. “Have you spoken to Julian?” she finally asks, not looking at me when she says his name.

I place my fork down. “No.”

“Why?”

“Why should I?” I hear the flatness in my voice and hate it.

Eleanor’s eyes flick to me then, quick and assessing. “People go through all sorts of problems, Ariane. I’m sure…,” she says.

“I don’t need another lecture, Mom.” I interrupt, my tone giving away the resentment I’ve been feeling toward her and she looks away.

Richard clears his throat in the delicate way that means:Stop before I need to have a second surgery.

The rest of dinner is a pantomime of normalcy. We are actors in a show with no audience, hitting our marks, speaking our lines. Somewhere under the table, my ankle buzzes with awareness. I cross my legs and press the anklet against my calf,like pressure could quiet it and I could press my body flat against the truth and smooth it out.

When the dishes are cleared and Richard is tucked in again with a blanket and a book, I escape to my room while Mom takes a call in the office. Her voice is low and contained. I cannot hear words, but it doesn’t sound like business to me.

My phone lights up on the dresser. A message icon, the little red badge like a drop of blood. For a half-second my heart jumps, stupid, eager, and shameless, and then the name below the badge kills the foolishness dead.

Julian:Sending the report now. You can show it to whoever you want. I won’t be slandered.

The PDF drops a moment later. Metadata, logins, IPs, jargon that wants to be truth. I scroll even though my hands have started shaking. It’s neat, orderly, and convincing. It’s the kind of thing you could show a mother to make her feel better about her daughter’s choices, and I hate it for that.