Chapter 3

My father had security close the estate gates.

He thought that as long as I couldn't leave, everything I had just done could be explained away as an heir's emotional outburst.

After the guests left, we were kept in the breakfast room. My father slapped the renunciation down on the table, and the edge of the paper caught the back of my hand, leaving a thin red cut.

"Do you know how much money you've just given up?"

"The lawyer estimated it."

"Two point seven billion dollars." He stared at me. "Don't try to scare us with childish tricks. You're not capable of living an ordinary life."

I almost thought I'd misheard.

All these years, I was the one reading operations reports at six every morning, the one rushing out in a blizzard when the hotel's pipes burst, the one who negotiated financing from three banks on my father's behalf. In his eyes, I was still just the daughter who couldn't live without the family credit card.

My mother softened her voice. "We admit we overlooked your feelings tonight. If you withdraw the statement, the hotel can stay in your name."

"Grandmother left it to me in the first place."

She paused, as if that fact had never occurred to her.

Lydia said through tears, "It's all because of me. Evelyn, do you want me on my knees begging you?"

She didn't kneel, of course. She only stood within my mother's reach, waiting for someone else to accuse me for her.

Sure enough, my brother Charles spoke up. "You knew her marriage was in trouble, and you still provoked her in front of all those people. Even if you wanted to make a scene, you could have waited until the night was over."

"When does it count as over?" I asked. "When I've given her the hotel? When I've taken over the company and made myself responsible for every one of her bills?"

"We're family."

"A family doesn't remember only the daughter who cries."

Charles's face hardened. He had protected Lydia most since we were children. When she smashed my record collection, it was because I hadn't locked my door. When she took my car without asking and drove it into the wall, it was because I'd left the keys somewhere too obvious. When she kissed my date on purpose before my engagement, it was because I had made her feel insecure.

My father ended the argument impatiently. "You'll stay in your room tonight. The lawyer will bring the revocation papers in the morning."

"No need. I've already bought a plane ticket."

"To where?" my mother finally asked.

Not once that night, until now, had anyone asked about my plans.

"Bell Harbor, Maine."

My grandmother had run a small inn there when she was young. After she died, the house went to Ruth, the old housekeeper who had cared for her for years. Last month, Ruth wrote that she was planning to retire and asked whether I would like to rent the house.

"A fishing village?" Lydia couldn't believe it. "How many days could you last there?"

My father sneered. "Two weeks at most. Once you find there's no driver, no cook, and no one who respects you because of the name Ashford, you'll come back on your own."

I didn't argue.

In the small hours, I packed a single suitcase. Lydia's crying carried from the end of the corridor, and my mother stayed with her all night. No one knocked on my door.

When I came downstairs, the lights were still on in the living room. On the dining table sat a deep blue velvet box holding my grandmother's sapphire brooch.

She had left it to me. She said the sapphire was like me, quiet, but with a light of its own.

Now the brooch was pinned to the shawl Lydia had left behind.

I unpinned it, and it had just settled in my palm when my mother came down the stairs.

"Lydia was in a terrible state tonight. She'd only sleep with it on."

"It's mine."

"Can't you let her have her way one last time?"

One last time.

Every time, they said it was the last time, and so my life had been cut into one "last time" after another.

I opened my hand and let my mother read the engraving on the back: To my dear Evelyn, may you always know you deserve to be loved.

"You never once said anything like that to me."

My mother's lips moved.

I waited a few seconds. Perhaps I was still waiting for her to hold me, to say don't go, to finally treat me as a daughter who could hurt too.

From upstairs came Lydia's voice, calling for Mom.

My mother turned at once.

I pinned the brooch inside my coat and took the handle of my suitcase.

When the front door closed behind me, no one came after me.

In that moment, I stopped waiting once and for all.