The back window slides down with a mechanical purr.
My mother’s face appears in the gap. She looks regal, like she’s about to give a speech to the United Nations, not talk to her son who just had a breakdown in a dive café. Her pearls are a barrier. Her silk scarf is a choking hazard.
“Skyler,” she says, but there is no warmth in her voice, no anger. There is only the detachment of a doctor explaining a necessary amputation. “Get in. We’re blocking the throughway.”
“I have my car, Mother.”
“Get in,” the voice from the driver’s seat booms.
Dad is gripping the steering wheel like it’s the neck of an enemy. Staring straight ahead, he doesn’t bother so much as glance at me. He looks like he’s aged a decade in the last three days, but his eyes are still as sharp as a closing argument.
Rather than get in, I lean against the frame of their car.
“Damage control, Skyler,” my mother says, her manicured hand emerging to pat the leather seat. “We’ve spent the morningwith the firm’s PR team and the Davises. The narrative is already shifting. We’re going to frame the club disaster as a temporary lapse in judgment—a stressful reaction to the Henderson project. A ‘young man’s stumble’ before finding his true path.”
“A young man’s stumble?” I repeat. “Is that what we’re calling it? I lost the woman I love because I was too much of a coward to tell you to stay out of my life. That’s a full face-plant.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” my father snaps. “The Matthews girl was a disaster. We were shown up by a social worker, a handyman, and a failing bookstore owner! We need a recovery move.”
“And let me guess,” I say, my voice dropping an octave, “the recovery move involves Amanda.”
“She’s willing to forgive you,” Mother says. “She’s a remarkable woman who understands the pressure. Skyler. She’s ready to stand by you.”
I laugh. A fully belly, non-posed laugh. “She’s miserable.”
“She’s compliant,” my father corrects. “What a wife is supposed to be.”
He reaches into the center console and pulls out a stack of envelopes, then holds them out to me. They are heavy, cream-colored cardstock—the kind of paper that costs more than a week’s wages.
“We’ve already drafted the new announcements,” Mother says, her eyes gleaming. “The Thompson-Davis union. We’re scheduling the ceremony for next month. Small, intimate, very ‘old money.’ No distractions this time. Just family and the board.”
I take the top envelope, though I don’t open it. Through the paper, I can see the silver engraving. See the Thompson crest—the heavy, ornate shield that represents two hundred years of managed misery.
“Next month? You’ve already made the invitations?”
“Efficiency is the hallmark of our family,” my father says. “We don’t wait for things to fix themselves. We fix them.”
Something inside me snaps.
It isn’t a gradual break.
Not a slow realization.
It’s a violent, tectonic shift. The pressure that has been building in my chest for years—the “management,” the “appropriateness,” the “legacy”—it all goes up in a single, blinding flash of white-hot fury.
“How dare you?”
The scream erupts from my lungs with a force that makes my mother flinch back against the leather seat. It’s a raw, animal sound. It’s the sound of the puppet cutting its own strings.
“Skyler!” my mother gasps, her hand flying to her throat. “Lower your voice! People are looking!”
“Let them look!” I roar. I step toward the car, my shadow falling over them like a curse. “Let them see the great Robert and Elaine Thompson being told exactly what they are! You didn’t even wait for the body to get cold! Harley isn’t even out of her dress yet, and you’re already printing the next contract?”
“Watch your tone, son,” my father growls, his face turning a dangerous shade of purple. “I am trying to save your life and future.”
“You’re trying to save your guest list!” I shove the invitations back through the window. They scatter across the silver interior like falling leaves. “You don’t give a damn about my future! If I were happy, you wouldn’t know what to do with me! You only know how to handle me when I’m broken, when I’m ‘appropriate,’ when I’m a line item on your goddamn balance sheet!”
“You’ve had a breakdown,” Mother says, her voice trembling now. “We need to get you to the doctor.”
