“It’s not a matter of competency, Alex. I knew you’d manage fine.”
“You better start making sense soon, before I get one of Rocco’s men to knock you out.”
“Ask your mother.”
“My mother can’t remember what day it is half the time.”
“She asked me to vote against you, Alex. The same day you left for Sorrowsong. She knew exactly why you were going, and she asked me to, if it came to it, do anything in my power not to let you take your father’s job.”
I open my mouth and shut it again. Confusion, hurt, betrayal,denial. They all make their steady way through my mind. “She wouldn’t.”
“She made me promise.”
“You’re lying.”
“How is she?”
“You have absolutely no right to ask about any of them.”
“Our architecture program is already widely renowned, Alex.”
I hang up, blood boiling. If I could grip him by the purple waistcoat and toss him off Sorrowsong’s tallest turret, I would.
But that would make me my father.
So I delete his email without responding and put my head in my hands at my desk.
MY SISTERS AREat school when I get back to the house. I left work to finish the day from home, too rattled to do anything else.
It’s odd when they’re not home. Too cold, too quiet in this modern monstrosity of a house. The white walls are clinical, the lights are bright and harsh, the mirrors make me miserable.
I can’t wait to leave this house, these memories, behind. I make a mental note to email my realtor.
My mom is in the small garden with one of her caretakers, picking flowers and putting them into a vase. She’s coming out the other end of a real low. Every day she eats less, looks frailer. I open the sliding doors noisily so as not to startle them, stepping out into the chilly breeze.
My mom’s face lights up when she spots me, as it always does. Her carer heads inside to give us a moment. “You’re home.”
“I’m home.”
I take a seat on the bench beside her, huffing out a long breath.
She tips my face toward her, scrutinizing me. “Something’s happened with your father.”
“How’d you know?”
“You and Ophelia are fine. I’m circling the drain, but that’s not new. The girls are okay. I don’t know what else could make you look so exhausted.”
“He’s nearby. He’s circling us, I can feel it.”
She sighs, opening up the petals of a flower gently before she slides it into the vase. “He has an awful lot of contacts in the city, and in the travel industry.”
“Yeah. Shame he didn’t get into something like bakeries.”
Her laugh is melodic, eyes bright and alert above the dark circles below. “If he was into bakeries, he’d have been smuggled here in a bag of flour. You know what he’s like.”
“I feel so useless.”
She trails her fingers over the gold band on my index finger—her father’s ring. “I said the same thing to my mom at your age.”
