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Callie: Is it really over?

Letting out a breath, I typed out a reply.

yeah, it’s over.

Chapter Forty-One

Iclicked the button on my tape measure so it coiled back into its case with a clatter and a snap.

My client was Meredith Miller, who owned a loft in Ferndale that hadn’t seen fresh paint since the Obama administration. Seated in her wingback chair, I double-checked the inventory I’d need for her living room redesign. I’d already ordered a gorgeous sectional sofa with washable slipcovers, because no one with two Italian greyhounds and three Persian cats wants a sofa that’s precious about how it’s cleaned. The breezy linen drapes would open up the room perfectly. Now I just needed an area rug to tie it all together.

The scar on my hand had faded to a thin pale seam below my little finger. I found myself running my thumb over it once I set the tape measure on the coffee table.

I’d resigned two days after the solstice. I’d rehearsed a dignified speech in the car about growth and gratitude and then stood in Vivienne’s kitchen while she blinked at me over a green juice and arrived, in real time, at the conclusion that my departure was her accomplishment.

“This is why I was so demanding of you, Marlowe. Because it built your strength. Your resilience. I always knew you’d be a fabulous designer. And now it’s time for you to fly the nest.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” I’d said, because I’d also resigned from saying of course.

Sofia resigned just two weeks later, so now Vivienne was taking a crash course in self-sufficiency. She’d even learned how to use her own espresso machine, but she still texted me now and then with questions like, where do we keep the spirulina?

Right before I resigned, Vivienne had been invited to join the advisory circle of a women’s longevity institute. Very exclusive, very flattering, a letter on thick matte paper. She read it to me over the phone, glowing. I recognized the name. Meridian House.

I spent a week talking her out of it, an inch at a time, like I was steering her away from a cliff edge without ever saying the word cliff. In the end, she declined because I convinced her the board skewed too senior for her brand. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall, watching Octavia Halcyon read that.

The funny thing is that most of my new clients came from Vivienne’s social circle. Blythe was the first to contact me about a closet redesign, even though I’d persuaded her to sign up to the world’s worst retreat. As it turned out, dancing your divorce out of your hips can lead to a brand-new man holding on to them. Blythe had met a guy at a salsa class, and they’d been dating for a few months. That had spurred a closet overhaul, which became a full redesign.

It had snowballed from there, and now I was booked for the next three months. The woman who’d exhausted me and gaslit me was now, obliviously, my easiest sales funnel.

Vivienne had moved on from the Sacred Flame debacle, claiming the retreat was hideously disorganized, but “the real work happens internally anyway.” She’d since moved on to cold plunges and a kundalini course run by a man in a kaftan named Tristan. She’d demanded a refund from Sacred Flame, lamenting poor customer service, never knowing she’d escaped being guzzled like Gatorade.

Sloane got her money back with a letter from Karen so coldly worded it could have chilled wine. Karen billed Aurora’s LLC for eleven hours, blaming the nausea on poor food preparation. She’d even threatened to sue.

Lark had left Vivienne’s orbit weeks ago and she recently surfaced in the reels of a woman in Ojai who sold breathwork subscriptions and promised past-life healing through three-thousand-dollar quantum hypnosis retreats.

Davina texted me sometimes. She’d joined an actual grief group in Arcata, with folding chairs and bad coffee and real people. In October she texted me: Turns out the retreat was the best worst thing that ever happened to me. It cracked me open. I keep thinking about what you said by the pool. That it was real. You were the only person that whole summer who didn’t act like they were trying to manage my grief. I started three replies and deleted all of them. I sent back a heart and sat with my tea until it went cold.

I talked to Lauren every Saturday, and the weather in Charlotte stayed clear. Maya celebrated her engagement, blissfully unaware of the crosshairs she’d been in.

The Mothers’ empire was dying in public, one comment section at a time. Damian read me the reviews the way other couples read horoscopes. Beautiful location, deeply disorganized. The founder appeared to have an episode in the ocean, which staff insisted was part of the work. It was not part of the work. Two stars because the cacao was excellent.

Then there were the skincare reviews. Did they change the formula?? had received four hundred replies, none of them positive. We watched the slow bleed of the coven from our phones, curled together on the sofa. But there was one review Damian didn’t read laughing. Three stars, a longtime subscriber: the new batch is fine. but the old formula was better. I know how this sounds, but it smelled like my sister’s hair when we were little. I used to open the jar just to feel less alone. Whatever they took out of it, I miss her.

Her. Neither of us said anything for a while after that one. There were women in those jars, and the world had loved them without knowing their names, and now the world was leaving three-star reviews about the loss.

Aurora hadn’t been seen since June. Rumor had it, the Mothers had blamed her for the sudden departure of their pet ghoul, and she’d fled to her vacation home in Vancouver. As it turned out, when the one vile thing holding them together disappeared, there was nothing but bile and distrust left between them. Damian’s mother hadn’t spoken to him since the retreat. We’d expected a few threatening phone calls. Something ugly wrapped in gauze. But there had been nothing, because now there was nothing she could demand of him. And Damian was fine. That was the miracle I kept checking on. He was actually fine.

Kai heard the Keepers had been quietly let go, one by one. Soren left the county. And one Saturday in October, at a park in Fortuna, Damian and I walked past a youth soccer game, and he went still beside me, just for a second. A trim man in a windbreaker was running the sideline with a whistle around his neck, clapping for somebody’s eight-year-old.

“James,” Damian said quietly, and we kept walking.

That was the thing I finally understood about the Keepers. They were never anything more than mercenaries. Take away the retainer and there’s just a man who looks like an accountant, coaching soccer on weekends, who would be terrible again if you paid him enough.

After I’d invoiced Meredith and soaked in the tub, we went to dinner at Callie and Kai’s. When Callie’s lease had ended, three weeks ago, she’d moved in with him, and he’d since learned how to fold laundry. His apartment now looked less like a surf shack and more like a home, with throw pillows and framed photos.

The four of us stood in their kitchen, where Kai and Callie assembled rockfish tacos and filled our glasses with wine. Damian leaned against the counter.

“Wait, you cook now?”