Page 7 of What You left in Me

I want to believe that I’m wrong. I shouldn’t be basing everything on a night that happened years ago. People change… I’ve changed. God knows I’ve had my fair share of misunderstandings, moments I wish I could rewrite. He deserves the same grace, doesn’t he? Everyone deserves that much.

So, fine. He can have it.

A new start. A fresh page.I can handle that.

I hear chairs scraping in the next room, the low hum of conversation, my mom’s voice smoothing over the edges before they can harden. That’s my cue.

I take one last breath of the foyer’s cooler air, square my shoulders, and step toward the glow spilling from the dining room. The doorframe rises in front of me like a line I can’t uncross.

But my place is waiting.

And so is he.

Chapter 3 – Finn – To Be or Not to Be

The dining room looks like money and restraint had a baby. Long walnut table, linen that creases like paper, floating candles trembling inside cylinders as if the air has nerves. Silver forks laid out in perfect military order, salad, fish, dinner, and dessert. God forbid anyone reaches for the wrong thing. The vintage Bordeaux sits uncorked beside Dad’s hand, bleeding into the decanter like a small red storm. Ten place settings gleam; only six chairs are occupied. Two empty ones wear their napkins like abandoned handkerchiefs.

Eleanor puts me at the far end and smooths the linen at my elbow, like she’s tidying up a prop in a tableau.

“You’ll have air from the window,” she says.

Then to Ariane, she adds, almost offhand: “You sit there, darling.”

The opposite end. Of course.

Dad settles in the middle like a friendly referee, his smile already trying to warm the corners of the room.

Small talk floats up like condensation. The weather, the garden, the anniversary weekend schedule. Brunch, boat rides, and speeches nobody needs. I watch the way candlelight glances off glass, off the old leaded windows, off Ariane’s ring. Thin band, diamond catching light like it’s starving. She smiles when expected and not a moment more, and she doesn’t look at me once. There’s a stillness to her that wasn’t there ten years ago. It isn’t shyness anymore, it's control.

Dad pours the wine when Eleanor gestures for him to.

“To being under one roof again,” he says, lifting his glass in a toast after he’s filled his own last. “Briefly,” he adds, self-aware, and it makes me huff. The warmth is real with him; it always has been.

I lift my glass because I’m not going to be an asshole in front of the man who taught me to change a tire and not to lie unless it was to spare someone’s dignity.

“Briefly,” I echo. Our glasses touch.

The Bordeaux has always been a household favorite. It should help, but I have a feeling it’s not going to.

Eleanor exhales as if the toast is a box ticked and glides into logistics, who’s staying where, who’s arriving Friday, what time the band will set up on the lawn. She says “band” like she hates the word.

Eleanor’s gaze shifts down the table toward Ariane, her smile devious. “Julian will be here Friday, won’t he, darling? Your fiancé always makes such an impression.”

Ariane’s fork hesitates, then lowers neatly to her plate. “Yes, Mom. He’ll be here.” Her voice is steady, but it sounds like she’s rehearsed it.

I take another sip, letting the drink sit on my tongue. Fiancé.Right. I remember hearing something about that in passing, one more neat little headline slotted into someone else’s life. It makes sense. Ariane was always the type to do the expected thing, the safe thing.

I lean back in my chair and let the conversation move on. Am I curious? Maybe. But it’s not any of my business.

Dad elbows the mood sideways.

“Did I tell you guys about the time Finn tried to install a motion detector in the south garden?” he asks jovially. He’s already grinning at me, eyes bright with humor. “He was sixteen and convinced the raccoons were a militia.”

A grin tugs at my mouth despite myself. “And I was right.”

“Until you tripped it yourself at two in the morning and scared the hell out of Mrs. Whitaker walking her dog.” Dad chuckles. “I’ve never seen you run so fast while insisting it was ‘calibrating.’”

Eleanor’s lips press together, fighting a smile. “Wait I actually remember Richard telling me that… you nearly broke your arm falling over the hedge.”