Chapter 4
The hallway still held the night's cold from the balcony doors. The marble threw back the warm light from the living room and the cool blue from the glass outside, and I could hear Mom's heels before I saw her. She came in from the entry without knocking, the way she always did when she said the apartment was still partly hers. Her burgundy velvet top caught the light, her short blonde bob was perfect, and her pearl earrings were in. She didn't look at my face first. She looked at the phone in my hand.
Ethan stood against the dark wood cabinetry with the white papers folded against his chest. He hadn't moved since Lucy had gone back inside. The air tasted like city air and perfume and the faint metal smell of the railing.
Mom set her bag down on the marble console and smoothed it with both hands. "Victoria, honey, you left your balcony open. You'll freeze."
I didn't move. The gold locket sat against my skin. I could feel the thin chain and the weight of the oval. I could feel how she didn't look at it.
"You came because Ethan called you," I said.
"He was worried," she said. Her voice was even. Composed. She adjusted one earring, just a touch. "You sounded upset on the phone."
I held the phone out so the screen lit her face. The COLE FAMILY chat was still open. The blue bubbles. The photo of her on the snow. "Mom you collected the result," I said. I kept my voice low. I wanted it to sound exactly the way I'd heard it in my head on the balcony, not louder. "You didn't tell me."
Her eyes flicked to the screen and then away, fast, to the hallway mirror, to Ethan, to anywhere that wasn't the locket. She blinked once, slow.
"I picked up an envelope for you," she said. "From the doctor's office. You were at the venue tasting. You asked me to."
"I didn't ask you to keep it."
"I protected you," she said. The pearl earring caught the light as she tilted her head. "You were in the middle of planning. The centerpieces, the seating chart, the foundation dinner. Richard said to give you space."
The name landed hard in that hallway. Richard. Not Ethan's dad. Richard, who'd written DON'T LET VICTORIA FIND OUT.
"You welcomed her while I was still planning my wedding," I said. The words felt strange coming out, like I was quoting someone else. I was. I was quoting what I'd understood ten minutes earlier when Lucy held her phone toward the TV. "You had dinner with her. You told her she was better for him. And you let me keep ordering invitations."
Mom's smile tightened but didn't break. She reached for my arm and I stepped back. The marble was cold under my bare feet.
"Lucy is a sweet girl," she said quietly. "Her family knows the Coles. It was one dinner. I didn't want you to get hurt over something that might not mean anything."
"It meant something," I said. I let the phone screen go dark. In the dimmer light I could see her more clearly. Her eyes kept sliding just past my collarbone. Past the chain. She would look at my eyes, at Ethan, at the door to the living room, at her bag. She would not look at the locket. I shifted, and the gold caught a little warm light, and she looked down at the floor.
Mom noticed me noticing. Her hand went to her throat, to where her own pearls sat, and then dropped.
Ethan cleared his throat. The papers rustled. "Mrs. Cole, maybe we should all sit down," he said. He said it to her, not to me.
"No," I said. I didn't look at him. "Mom, did you know about the locket?"
Mom didn't answer right away. She picked up her bag again and held the strap with both hands. Her breathing was careful. "You always liked vintage things," she said. "It's pretty on you. Very classic."
That wasn't an answer. It was a deflection with the same even tone she'd used when she used to tell me a low grade was fine if I was trying my best. Protected.
"Ethan told me Richard kept you close," I said. "Keep Victoria close. That's what the message said. Were you keeping me close too?"
Her composure held for one more second, that pearl-earring stillness, and then her mouth thinned. "I did what I thought was right for you," she said. "You get so focused, Victoria. You sign things without reading them. You trust too quickly. I didn't want you signing something you'd regret before the wedding."
The foundation. The signing. My signature as a key. She'd said it without meaning to say it.
I felt the hallway get smaller. The glass railing, the city lights, the papers in Ethan's hands all went tight around that one word.
"Mom," I said, and my voice finally shook, "where did this come from?"
She looked at Ethan then, directly, for the first time. A quick, silent exchange I wasn't meant to read. He gave a small shake of his head.
"I have to go," she said. She turned toward the dark wooden door. "We'll talk when you're calmer. You're tired. You're not thinking clearly."
She didn't kiss my cheek. She didn't touch the locket. She walked past me, and her shoulder barely brushed mine, and she kept her eyes on the door handle until it closed behind her. The lock clicked.
Ethan stayed in the hallway. The white papers were creased where he'd been holding them too hard.
May you like
"She didn't look at it once," I said, more to myself than to him. The chain was warm now from my skin.
He didn't answer. He looked at the marble counter with the white veining, at the closed door, at anything but me, and I understood I was alone in that entry with the chat still open in my hand and a piece of gold she pretended not to see.
