Part 7
Vivian shook her head immediately. “That’s not true.”
“She wanted you to leave.”
“No.”
“She said this place made both of you sick.”
“No.”
The final word came out louder.
The chandelier trembled slightly overhead from the force of Vivian’s voice.
Julian stared at her.
Vivian’s hands were shaking.
He had almost never seen them shake.
“She was dying,” Vivian said. “She was confused.”
“Elena,” Julian said, “did you read the letter?”
“No.” Her voice was fading again. “But Vivian did.”
Vivian stopped breathing.
Julian looked at his sister.
“You read it.”
“She gave it to me.”
“And you kept it.”
“I kept it because she asked me to.”
Elena’s fingers curled.
“She asked you to give it to him.”
Vivian’s eyes moved to Elena with a kind of exhausted fury.
“You were not there.”
“No,” Elena whispered. “But you told me.”
Julian looked at Elena.
“When?”
“She came to my apartment last month.”
Vivian’s mouth opened.
Julian stared at her.
“You went to Elena’s apartment?”
“She wouldn’t stop asking questions.”
“About what?”
“About us.”
Elena’s eyes opened.
“About you.”
Vivian’s gaze hardened.
“You had no right.”
“I had every right. I’m marrying him.”
“You were trying to take him away.”
Elena’s face changed.
Not from pain.
From something older.
Julian recognized it. He had seen it in her once before, when someone made her feel small enough that she had to decide whether to shrink or fight.
“You don’t own him,” Elena said.
Vivian descended another step.
Julian rose halfway without meaning to. He kept one arm behind Elena, but his body moved between her and the staircase.
“Don’t come closer.”
Vivian stopped again.
The silver beads on her gown caught the chandelier light and flashed around her like shards.
“I don’t own him,” Vivian said. “I raised him.”
Julian stared at her.
The words landed differently than she intended. Maybe she heard it too. Her eyes flickered.
Their mother had been alive. Their father had been alive. Vivian had not raised him.
But there were years when she had made dinner because their mother was too tired. Years when she had driven him to school because their father was gone before sunrise. Years when she had sat outside his bedroom door while he pretended not to cry after hearing their parents fight downstairs.
Julian knew that.
He had loved her for that.
He had also let her use it as a debt.
“You helped raise me,” he said. “You didn’t get to keep me.”
Vivian’s mouth trembled.
Elena turned her face slightly toward Julian, as though the sound of his voice had become something she could hold onto.
He felt her weight growing heavier against him.
Fear surged through him.
“Elena.”
Her eyes opened.
“Stay awake.”
“I’m awake.”
“You’re drifting.”
“I’m tired.”
“No.”
The word came out too hard.
Her brows drew together.
Julian forced himself to soften.
“Please,” he said. “Please don’t close your eyes.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then she said, “You have to stop apologizing for things you didn’t do.”
He almost told her not to talk.
Instead, he lowered his forehead to hers.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes despite him.
A sob rose in his throat.
Above them, Vivian made a broken sound.
Julian looked up.
His sister had one hand over her mouth.
For an instant, she looked less like the woman who had ruled the house and more like the girl he remembered from childhood. The girl who had carried a laundry basket bigger than her torso down the hall. The girl who had slept in a chair beside their mother’s bed because she was afraid their mother would wake up alone.
Then her hand lowered.
The old hardness returned.
“She was going to leave you,” Vivian said.
Julian stared at her.
Elena’s eyes opened again.
“What?”
Vivian’s gaze fixed on Julian.
“She was going to leave you,” she repeated. “Not tonight. Not because of me. She told me.”
Elena’s breath caught.
Julian felt it.
Vivian descended another step, then stopped herself.
“She told me she didn’t know if she could marry you.”
Elena shook her head weakly.
“No.”
“She said she was tired of being made responsible for every old wound you refused to look at.”
“No.”
Vivian’s eyes filled, but her voice grew sharper.
“She said she loved you, but she couldn’t keep living in a house where everyone pretended the past was somebody else’s fault.”
Julian looked down at Elena.
Her face had gone still.
It was not the stillness of someone who had been caught in a lie.
It was the stillness of someone hearing a private thought dragged into the open.
“You told her that?” he asked.
Elena’s lips parted.
May you like
“I told her I was scared.”
The answer hurt more than denial would have.
