Just people eating under the same chandeliers that had once lit up my humiliation.
At the end of the evening, Charles handed me a note.
No return address.
I knew the handwriting.
Courtney.
I almost threw it away.
Instead, I opened it.
Madeline,
I’m not asking you to forgive me. I don’t deserve that. I just wanted you to know I told the investigator the truth about Daniel and the commissions. All of it.
Mom said I betrayed her. Maybe I did. But I think I betrayed myself first by becoming exactly what she rewarded.
I don’t know how to be your sister yet. Maybe I never did.
But I’m sorry.
No performance.
No demand.
No excuse.
I folded the note and placed it in my desk drawer beside my father’s letter.
Not because they were equal.
Because both belonged to the past, and for once, the past had a place to stay without running the house.
Later that night, I walked through the empty dining room.
The piano was quiet.
The tables were cleared.
The chandeliers glowed softly over polished floors.
I stood near the spot where Courtney had pointed at me and said I didn’t belong.
Charles appeared at the entrance.
“Everything all right, Ms. Anderson?”
I looked around the room.