“What are you doing?”
“I’m giving you a tour,” Steven says. “The Thompson Estate Guided Tour of Regret and Institutionalized Misery. Get up. Put on some clothes that don’t cost five hundred dollars. We’re going for a walk through the museum.”
“I’m staying here.”
“No, you aren’t.” Steven grabs my arm, his grip surprisingly strong. He pulls me toward the center of the room.
Saving myself the embarrassment of crawling back into bed, I say, “Fine. Lead the way.”
“Welcome to the east wing,” Steven says, his voice dripping with practiced irony. “Ever noticed how we never played in here? Not once. Not even on Christmas. We sat on the edge of the chairs, held our cocoa like it was nitroglycerin, and waited for Mother to tell us we could leave.”
I trace the fluting on the doorframe. As an architect, I appreciate the craftsmanship. The crown molding is hand-carved; the proportions are mathematically ideal. But as a man, I feel the walls closing in. It’s a room designed to discourage movement.
“It’s just a room, Steven,” I murmur, though my heart is thrumming a nervous, erratic rhythm against my ribs.
“It’s not just a room. It’s a blueprint for your marriage.”
We move to the dining room. The table is a twenty-foot expanse of polished mahogany that reflects the light from the chandelier like dark water.
“The boardroom,” Steven says, gesturing to the head of the table. “Remember the ‘Sunday Performance’? We’d sit here for two hours while Dad went through our grades like they were quarterly earnings reports. If you got a B+, it was a ‘market fluctuation’ that needed immediate correction. If you won a trophy, it was ‘meeting expectations.’”
Glancing at the chair where I spent my childhood, my back straightens instinctively. I can almost taste the sea bass, along with a metallic tang of fear. I remember the way Robert would tap his signet ring against the wood when he was disappointed.
Ting. Ting. Ting.
“He never raised his voice,” I say, my breath coming shorter now. “He was just . . . thorough.”
“He was an executioner with a calm demeanor, Sky. He didn’t raise his voice because he didn’t have to. He just withdrew his approval until you were gasping for air. He made us believe that love was something you earned through achievements and social standing. And you believed him so hard that you tried to make Harley earn it, too.”
Steven leads me toward the back of the house, toward the heavy, brass-studded door of our father’s study. The air here isdifferent. It’s cooler, smelling of old leather, expensive tobacco, and the crushing weight of legacy.
“The inner sanctum,” Steven whispers.
He pushes the door open. Books line the room, though no one has ever read them—for display only. Meanwhile, Robert’s desk is a massive slab of dark oak, positioned so that anyone entering feels small, unimportant, and already on the defensive.
I stop at the edge of the rug. I can’t go in. My feet are lead. I remember being ten years old, standing on this exact spot, while Robert explained to me that a Thompson never settles for second best. He’d looked at my drawing of a house—a simple, messy thing with a crooked chimney—and told me that the foundation was flawed before he tore it up.
“This is where he broke us,” Steven says, his voice losing its mocking edge. He walks over to the leather chair behind the desk and sits down. He looks absurd in his band tee, but his eyes are old. “I spent four years in therapy in order to walk into this room without wanting to vomit.”
I lean against the doorframe, my shoulders tensing until they ache. “I’m not like him.”
“Hmm. You’re right about one thing. While our father is strict, you’re weak. But you still built a cage for Harley, just like he built one for you. You used his tools, his logic. You thought if you could just get her into the club, if you could just get her the grant, if you could just make her ‘appropriate,’ then she’d be safe. But you weren’t protecting her; you were trying to protect your own standing in this room.”
Steven stands up, the leather of the chair creaking like a moan.
“This isn’t a home,” he says, stepping toward me. “It’s a prison where identities go to die.”
My breath is shallow, a frantic, stuttering thing. I feel a wave of nausea, a visceral rejection of the environment I’ve spent my entire life trying to master.
“I hate it here,” I whisper.
“Good.”
Chapter 19
Harley
The white silk dress is in a heap on the floor of my father’s guest room. It looks like a dead thing, a rejected commitment I refused to sign. I’m wearing an old pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with a Northwestern logo that’s peeling at the edges. Right now, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned.
