Page 32 of What You left in Me
The one with the beard swallows and passes his over like I’ve asked for a kidney. Aggrieved, I scroll through a dozen images fast, string lights, Eleanor laughing with a senator’s wife, the moment the crowd turned, the point where a white-shirt arm appears in the corner and everything blurs. I find one that shows too much fear on Ariane’s face and have to swallow down my fury.
“You’re going to wipe anything that shows medical personnel, oranymember of this family in any form of distress,”I say, meeting their eyes one at a time. “If I see a single frame anywhere online, I will own your careers by lunch.”
The clean-shaven one tries a smile. “We can sign an NDA…”
“You’re not listening.” I pass the first camera back, then tap my phone on my palm. “You’ll send me these. I’ll pay you twice your rate to erase the rest. You’ll take the money and go home grateful you met me instead of a lawyer. Deal?”
Beard nods so fast his glasses slip down the bridge of his nose.
Pivoting away, I find that the quartet is still here too. They’re holding their instruments like shields.
“You’re done,” I tell them. “That should’ve been clear when the party ended with ambulances.”
Are people really this fucking stupid?
I shove envelopes into hands, overpaying, because I can’t quite begrudge the working people just trying to outlast the rich. “Pack up. Take the lawn exit. Don’t talk to anyone on the way.”
The leader, cellist, mid-forties, eyes like he’s seen worse, bows slightly. “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir.”
I watch them go until the last case clicks shut.
I turn to the bar.
Two stragglers are arranging their faces into pity. “Party’s over,” I say, clipping the words short. “Out.”
“We’re family friends,” one of them tries to appeal, as if that’s going to help. As if that means anything to me.
“So, you’ll understand why I’m not asking twice,” I reply, straining to maintain a grasp on my patience. It’s withering awayminute by minute. I draw a breath through my clenched teeth, and attempt softening just enough to make compliance feel like their idea. “It’s been too eventful an evening. Car service is out front. Take it. Tomorrow you can send flowers. My stepmother would greatly appreciate that, I’m sure.”
They look at each other and probably decide they’ve already had enough excitement for their Christmas letters. They finally go.
I wade deeper into the house, just to run into Maria, the housekeeper with a good heart and a paycheck that’s not nearly big enough to be dealing with Eleanor on a daily basis.
“We can finish the breakdown, Mr. Wagner,” she says in a small voice. “Mrs. Wagner usually…”
“She’s at the hospital.” I thumb toward the service hall. “You’re done here, too. Everyone clocks out now.” The crew shifts, relief sneaking onto faces they’ve been trained to keep blank. “Maria, leave me the keys and the alarm code. I’ll lock up.”
She hesitates. “Are you sure, Mr. Finn?”
“I know where everything is. I’ve been here longer than any of you,” I say, though it’s not necessarily true. I left this fucking place a long time ago—though I can’t seem to stay the hell away, can I? Thankfully, no one tries to correct me. I can lock up fine, but I’m not sure how well I’d clean up after the resultant bloodbath. “Go home.”
Warily, she acquiesces, leaving me with a giant ring riddled with keys. Normal people would’ve just upgraded the security system to something completely automatic by now, but not Eleanor.
I sigh as Maria squeezes my arm and mutters a prayer in Spanish on her way to the staff door.
I move through the rooms putting things back in boxes and people back in their cars. It’s method more than mercy. It keeps my hands busy while my head replays the car in loops: her breath interrupting the radio, the way her mouth opened like she was daring herself not to stop, the tiny sound she made when I slid my hand to the warm line of her waist. If I quiet the house enough, maybe it’ll stop. It doesn’t.
The lawn is a graveyard of glass cylinders, tea lights stuttering in their last quarter-inch of wax. I blow them out one by one, the smell of extinguished flame ghosting up in little sighs. I roll up linen with the efficiency of a man who grew up in a place where you do your own cleanup or sleep in the mess.
When the last rental rack is stacked by the service drive, I tip the driver extra and lie, “We’ll send someone to sign in the morning.”
Inside, the silence finally settles like dust after a demolition. The foyer is a shell of rented chandeliers still warm, roses already slumping in expensive sighs, confetti of leaf litter tracked in by a hundred shoes and all of it so fucking performative it makes my teeth hurt.
I lock the doors.
For a long minute I just stand in the middle of the foyer and let the chandeliers glare down at me. Eleanor ordered them to look like stars. The roses along the banister are starting to wither at the edges, even though they came in on refrigerated trucks and a florist with a headset wired the whole staircase like it was a patient.