“Gee, thanks, Mom,” I’d answered.
“It wasn’t a compliment.Your clothes are too expensive, and your hair is too short.”
Classic Gladys Wakefield.Weaponized honesty.
The first thing I’d done when I got to Manhattan was chop six inches off my hair.I remembered watching blonde strands slide down the salon cape and feeling lighter with every snip, as if I were shedding more than split ends.Now I reached up and brushed my fingers along the sleek line of my cut, stopping where it sat above my shoulders.
“I like it this way,” I’d said.
My father had come to my rescue, as he always tried to.“She likes it, Gladys.And it looks great.”
My mother had made a noncommittal sound, the verbal equivalent of a shrug that said agree to disagree.
Now, as the last of the neighbors shuffled through the living room with their Pyrex dishes and condolences, I watched my mother work the crowd.Black dress, pearls, hair in a tight bun, jeweled reading glasses hanging on a chain.She accepted every hug with a tremble of her bottom lip and a damp handkerchief pressed dramatically to her nose.
If grief were a performance, Gladys deserved an Oscar.
Every so often, she shot me a sharp look over someone’s shoulder.The look said,They’re asking about you.You’re a problem.
I lifted my chin and pretended not to care.
People came.People cried.People left.Eventually the house emptied, the murmur of voices fading until only family remained.My parents, my older sister Iris, my brother Clay… and one stranger in an expensive suit.
The stranger set a leather briefcase on his knees and flipped the latches with quiet precision.
“Good afternoon,” he said, his voice smooth and practiced.“My condolences to you all.I know this is a difficult time—”
“Can we get on with it?”Iris cut in.
She lounged on the far end of the sofa, long legs crossed, arms folded, posture coiled like a cat ready to pounce.She was our mother’s twin in temperament and looks.Tall, sleek, blue-eyed, dark hair flowing down her back in a glossy sheet.Even her glare matched Gladys’s—cold and sharp enough to nick skin.
She was also six years older than me, which meant she’d had a solid head start on perfecting the art of being terrifying.
Clay slouched on the opposite end of the sofa in jeans and boots, his black cowboy hat tipped back on his head.He looked like he’d been born leaning against a fencepost.Boredom rolled off him in lazy waves.
Across from them, Gladys and George Wakefield sat on the love seat.Gladys clutched her shredded handkerchief.George tamped fresh tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with the careful focus he reserved for small tasks that allowed him to avoid big emotions.
I perched in the ancient wingback chair across from the lawyer, hands clenched together in my lap.Waiting.
Waiting for this to be done so I could book the next flight out of here and never look back.
Alice had been larger-than-life for as long as I could remember.Summer days in the greenhouse, surrounded by flowers that felt like something out of a storybook.Dirt under my fingernails.The warm, loamy smell of soil and something else—something I’d once called magic before I learned magic wasn’t a word adults liked.
Alice had always had a way of telling stories like they were memories instead of fairy tales—about other lands, mirror-thin borders between worlds, and magic that didn’t disappear so much as retreat.At the time, I’d laughed, thinking it was Alice being whimsical.
Now, the memory stirred something uneasy in my chest.
When I wasn’t in the garden, I’d spent hours curled into the window seat in Alice’s house, devouring novels about faraway kingdoms, enchanted forests, and girls who saved the day instead of waiting to be rescued.Alice never told me those stories were childish.If anything, she’d encouraged them—adding tales of her own about hidden realms and old trees that listened.
Those memories hit me now like a punch to the sternum.
Alice was gone.Not a phone call or a text.Gone.
I swallowed hard and blinked away the sudden sting in my eyes.
The lawyer’s gaze slid from Iris to Clay and finally landed on me, lingering there in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“Patience, Iris,” Gladys said, casting her eldest daughter a reprimanding glance before turning on her best hostess smile for the stranger.“But we are anxious to understand why you’ve called us all together today, Mr.Schneider.”
