Chapter 4: The Water Stops
The first order of business was not the drive or the guests still lingering near the driveway.
It was Emily’s hands.
I walked her upstairs while Margaret’s voice rose behind us about scenes and misunderstandings. Ashley tried to follow; I closed the bedroom door without raising my volume. In the bathroom I ran cool water and held Emily’s wrists under it until the red began to fade at the edges. She kept apologizing in fragments—for the pots, for not calling me, for letting the house become something she no longer recognized. I told her the only person who owed an apology in that kitchen was the one who had pointed at the sink and called it her job.
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She cried once, quietly, the way people cry when the danger has stepped back far enough to allow it. I gave her clean clothes from her own closet—clothes that still hung where she had left them, untouched by the party’s logic—and sat with her on the edge of the bed until her breathing evened. The velvet box stayed in my pocket. The necklace could wait. Some gifts require a room that belongs to the person receiving them.
Downstairs, the catering staff had begun packing under the eye of the estate manager I had called from the service kitchen. The unfamiliar security guard was already gone. The two cars I had not purchased were being documented for removal. Michael stood in the foyer with a glass he no longer seemed to want. Margaret sat in the dining room amid the ruins of lobster and imported wine, calculating the next version of the story.
