Chapter 6
The television didn't turn off when Lucy set her phone down. It froze on the last frame she'd mirrored, the snow filling the whole screen.
I hadn't touched the remote. I stood in the living room with the city behind me through the glass and the cold light of that slope in front of me, and I watched it because I couldn't look away. Two pairs of boots at the edge of a trail. Mine were not in the picture. The text at the bottom said EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO in plain white letters, like a date stamp I was supposed to ignore.
I reached for the remote on the marble counter and pressed pause even though it was already still. The click was loud.
My mom filled the next frame. She was skiing, actually skiing, in that burgundy dress she wore to every winter charity weekend at Deer Valley. Not a coat, a dress. She'd laughed about it for years, said it was impractical and that was why she loved it. Her pearl earrings caught the sun. Behind her the slope dropped off white and clean, and someone had taken the photo from just a few feet away, low, like they'd been standing beside her.
I remembered that day. Ethan had told me she went alone that year. He'd said Richard had a board meeting and Lucy didn't ski and I had my bar exam prep course so I shouldn't worry about missing it.
"You didn't go," I said. I didn't mean to say it out loud.
Lucy was still by the balcony door. She didn't answer right away. I heard her breathe.
"I wasn't invited that year," she said.
"No," I said. "I meant I didn't go."
I rewound the mirrored stream a few seconds. The boots came back, then the slope, then my mom again. This time I looked past her. At the right edge of the screen, cut off by the television's bezel, was a gloved hand holding a phone. Light beige sleeve. Satin. The cuff was the same one Lucy had worn tonight.
I felt my own hand tighten around the locket at my throat without deciding to.
"Who took this?" I asked.
Lucy stepped closer but not too close. "Ethan did."
That was the part that didn't fit. In the story they'd told me, Ethan had been in New York that weekend. He'd sent me a picture of his hotel desk, papers spread out, a coffee gone cold. He'd called that night and said the altitude was making his head hurt. I'd believed him because why wouldn't I.
I walked to the entry where Ethan had left his stack on the console. The white papers were still there, a little curled at the corner where he'd held them too tight. I flipped the top sheet over. It wasn't a letter. It was a foundation authorization form. At the bottom were two signature lines. One was Ethan's. The other was mine, copied in that neat loop I'd practiced for joint accounts.
And a date.
December 14. Eighteen months ago, to the week.
I stared at it until the numbers blurred and came back.
"You signed that weekend," Lucy said quietly behind me. She hadn't followed me to the papers, but she could see what I was looking at. "I was there when he printed it."
I turned. "You were on that slope."
She nodded once. Her eyes didn't flick away. "Your mom asked me to take the picture. She said she wanted one with all of us. Richard told her not to post it. He said you were stressed with the exam and it would just cause questions."
"All of us," I repeated.
"Me, your mom, Ethan, Richard," she said. "We had dinner that night in the lodge. They introduced me as Ethan's friend from the foundation. Your mom kept calling me 'honey' and fixing my hair. I didn't know what I was supposed to be."
The television behind us made a soft pop as it went to sleep. The snowy slope disappeared and the room went back to warm lamplight and blue night through the windows. I could see my own reflection in the glass, the black dress, the gold oval at my neck that had not been a gift on that trip but months later, after they'd already decided.
I put the paper down carefully, exactly where Ethan had left it. My fingers left a faint print on the white.
"Eighteen months," I said. "You knew them before I knew you knew them. He had my signature ready before we even set a wedding date."
Lucy swallowed. "He told me it was routine. That you trusted him to handle the paperwork. I didn't understand what it was for until later."
May you like
I didn't ask her to explain. I didn't need her to. The line Richard had typed in the chat was suddenly not a single cruel sentence but a calendar. Keep Victoria close. Not for a week or a month. For a year and a half. Long enough to make me feel chosen while they tried on the other option. Long enough to get the key cut before anyone heard the lock turn.
I looked at the dark television again, at the empty screen where my mom had been smiling in the snow, and I finally understood the order of things. The locket hadn't started anything. It had just marked who they'd already picked to stay.
