My mother falls silent. Her eyes, so like mine, flick down to the wine glass she’s been cradling. She turns it slowly by the stem.
“It’s true,” I say, my voice quieter now. “You gave me everything. And it’s also true that you weren’t there in a lot of the ways I needed you to be. Both things can be true at the same time.”
My mother falls silent. It’s a rare, jarring sight.
“How poetic,” my father sneers, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And how predictably immature. We were gone because we had to be, Annemarie. Had we not been building this life, you wouldn’t have had a single one of those opportunities you’re so quick to dismiss. Parents have been working to provide for their children since the beginning of time. It’s called being an adult. You should try it sometime.”
I flick my eyes back to him, the anger simmering low but present, like the warmth from the candle flickering between us,the wax pooling low on the holder. “You haven’t asked me once how I’m doing.”
“How I’m doing,” I repeat, my voice even, watching his fingers unclasp and reclasp on the table. “You’ve laid into every way I’ve shamed the family, but not once tonight has it occurred to you to ask if your daughter is okay. If I’m happy. If I’m safe.”
I hold his frigid blue gaze. “You might think I’m the selfish one. But maybe take a look in the mirror, Dad. From where I’m standing, it seems like you care more about your public image than you care about your child.”
As if on cue, the waiter appears with our food. He sets the plates down with a quiet efficiency—the gleaming salmon for my mother, the bloody steak for Daniel, the perfect rack of lamb for my father. My seared scallop salad looks like a still-life painting, beautiful and utterly unappealing. My stomach is a hard knot.
My father waits until the waiter’s shadow has vanished before he speaks again.
“The same way you didn’t care about how we were doing while you were off gallivanting around New York?” he asks. “Living in that…that rat-infested petri dish you call an apartment?”
I scrunch my brows, the anger momentarily eclipsed by a sharp spike of genuine confusion. “How did you even find me? I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I didn’t use the credit cards.”
My mother takes a slow, steadying sip of her wine. “Honestly, you’re far less anonymous than you think. You didn’t use the cards, which was a nice touch—very dramatic—but you didn’t think about the social security number attached to your health insurance. A very simple ping from a pharmacy in the East Village for an asthma inhaler refill six weeks ago gave us the zip code.”
She gives a small, elegant shrug. “From there, it was just a matter of hiring a private investigator to do a bit of legwork. They found a girl matching your description entering an apartment on the Upper West Side every morning. Working as a…what did the report call it? A ‘nanny’ for a professor? It didn’t take long to find your apartment after that.”
I feel a chill go down my spine. A pharmacy. A goddamn Albuterol refill. I thought I was being a master of disguise, and I was undone by my own lungs. It’s so absurd I almost want to laugh, except for the fact that a stranger has been watching me walk Emma to the park.
“So you’ve been stalking me?” I whisper, the word feeling heavy and ugly between the crystal and the silver.
“We’ve been trying to find our daughter,” my father corrects, cutting into his lamb with an intensity that suggests he’s imagining it’s my neck. “There’s a difference. We needed to be sure you hadn’t shaved your head and joined a cult or ended up in a ditch somewhere. Though, frankly, being a servant for a Columbia academic isn’t much of a step up.”
He looks at me, his blue eyes hard and unyielding. “The point is, Annemarie, the jig is up. You’ve played at being a ‘commoner’ in the slums of Manhattan for three months now, and I hope you’ve gotten it out of your system. The vacation is over. You’re coming home, and we’re going to fix this mess with Daniel’s family before the holiday season starts.”
I look at the untouched salad on my plate, then back at the man who has spent twenty-five years mistaking dominance for fatherhood. I wrap my arms around my middle, the lavender silk bunching under my palms. I’m trying to look like a fortress, but inside, I’m a house of cards in a high wind.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, my voice surprising me with its grit. “I’m not coming home.”
My father sets his fork down. It lands with a sharpclinkagainst the fine china. “Yes, you are, because it’s time to grow the hell up. Youwillbe on the first-class flight I have booked for you tomorrow morning,” he says, his voice dropping into a terrifying, quiet vibrato. “Youwillgo back to California, and youwillhelp repair the mess you’ve made, or so help me, Annemarie. I have been patient. I have been indulgent. But I will not deal with your disobedience a second longer.”
“Or else what?”
He blinks, his face darkening to a dangerous shade of plum. “Excuse me?”
“You have no control over my life anymore.” I force the words out, each one a rock I’m throwing. “I’ve been supporting myself. Without your money. Without your permission.”
His face, already flushed, deepens to a dangerous shade of crimson. “You insolent little—”
“I’m not going back to California,” I say, cutting him off. My voice is clear, ringing in the space between us. “I’m not.”
He sits back, the movement stiff. He’s still fuming, but a colder, more calculating look settles into his eyes. “Well then,” he says, dabbing the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “That only confirms I made the right decision about your trust.”
My mother’s head snaps up from where she’s been methodically dissecting her salmon. “Graham, what are you—”
“I’ve had the terms altered,” he says, speaking over her as if she’s background noise. He takes a deliberate, slow bite of his lamb, chewing thoroughly while we all hang on his silence. He sips his red wine, dabs his mouth with a linen napkin, and finally looks at me again. “You will no longer be receiving it. I’ve spent the last week with the attorneys. Legally, the principal will no longer vest to you, Annemarie. It will be directed to Daniel. A gesture of goodwill and compensation for the public humiliation and breach of contract.”
Daniel’s head jerks up. He looks genuinely shocked, his gaze darting from my father’s stern face to mine. “Graham, wait. You don’t need to do that. I don’t want—”
My father holds up a single hand, a silencing gesture. “It’s the least we can do. Consider it a…severance package. For the future you were promised.”
