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"Manon, what’s wrong? What happened?"

"I'm getting divorced, Maman." Might as well get it out, without frills.

She doesn't say a word, just holds a hand out to me. I cross the room, let her catch my fingers in a soft grip as I sit down beside her.

"I thought I could do it," I say. "The year. I thought I'd walk out at the end of it and never look back. And instead I—" My throat closes. “I can’t.”

"You fell in love with him," she says gently. Not a question.

"How did you know?"

"Because I’ve watched the way you look at him when you think no one’s looking." Her thumb moves over the back of my hand. "I know what that look means, ma chérie." She smiles sadly. For a fleeting moment I think she's going to say something about her... “But he looks at you the same way. So why?”

"He hurt me," I respond. "Not the way you'd think. He didn't lay a hand on me. He just—" I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. "He decided things about my life. About who I'd love and when and how. He used me, Maman. And when I found out, there was nothing left to save. I … I can’t say more right now."

She doesn't defend him or try to lecture me about the meaning of marriage. Nor does she tell me how all men are like this, which I’m grateful for. She just holds my hand, and murmurs, "Then you're braver than I was."

I want to ask what she means, but I won’t open old wounds. She doesn’t deserve that.

"Stay tonight," she suggests. "In your old room. Let me look after you for one evening before you go back out there and pretend you're fine."

I almost say yes, but if I stay in this house another hour, I'll fall apart. With my father under the same roof, this is the last place on earth I can afford to come undone. The earth has just shifted under my feet, and there’s nowhere in this world I belong anymore. For some time, I was starting to believe my home was with Laszlo. I wasn’t even missing Charles, or feeling guilt at all the chaos my husband brought into my life.

He brought out all my darkness and put a crown on it. A crown made of blood and heat and tears. He didn’t mock or berate me for being this way. Before him, I had no idea who I was. I knew what I was on paper, a good surgeon, steady when everyone else fell apart. I knew how I saw the world. But the part of me even I couldn't see, he was the only one who found the key, and turned it, and let it out.

Now, Laszlo’s gone. My father’s gone, if I ever had him. Charles … well, Charles is in a better place.

And here I am, drifting.

"I have a shift," I lie.

She can tell it's a lie, but doesn’t push. That’s my mother—she goes with the flow. Perhaps that’s the way. It’s some sort of coping mechanism.

I kiss her cheek at the door, then she lifts her hand to caress my face.

"Whatever you decide," she says, "decide it for yourself. Not for your brother or your father. Not even for me. For once, ma chérie, choose the thing that's yours and only yours."

Her eyes gloss over, so I gather her in a tight embrace.

"Thank you, Maman," I say, and go without turning back because if I see her face again, I might stay. I just can’t do that.

* * *

By the time I park, it's dark. I'm far enough down the lane that Laszlo won't see me, and close enough to watch the gates.

Getting here was easier than it should have been. I’m realizing that since the divorce, Laszlo has cut down on security. The men who used to sit all around the property around the clock are gone. Denis checked the perimeter twice this evening and spotted two guards where there used to be many more, both of them near the road, not the house. Does he care for his own safety?

Dolores left an hour ago. I watched her drive off myself, in the little car she's had for years, and I won't let Denis move until I'm sure she’s gone. Everyone else is gone for the night, and Laszlo isn't home yet.

As I sit here, memories keep rushing back. His touch. His smell … how he could be rough and gentle at the same time. Brutal, yet caring. With me, he always was. He knew what buttons to push and when. He saw into my soul and reflected it back to me a thousand times over. He did not just see me, he read me.

He loved me in his way, an intense and all-encompassing emotion. Some would say it was worth the manipulation and the lies. The secrets that kept building and building higher than the tower of Babel would have paled in comparison to the benefits I might have reaped if I stayed. Like my mother did. Against the dictates of her heart, she stayed—perhaps because she had no idea of my father’s duplicitous nature. If she did find out, would she regret her decisions?

But Laszlo has always lifted me up, made me a queen of his world. In whatever twisted universe he pulled his feelings from, he gave me his all. Still, any of this didn't stop him from doing everything he did.

There was nothing he wouldn’t do to have me. Including murder.

What if I disappointed him one day? What if his feelings suddenly changed? Would he kill me, too? I wonder how much farther he’d go.