Chapter 1

NORA

"Sign it, Nora."

Charlie was standing by the window. He didn't turn around. He had been standing like that for over an hour, looking at the Sinclair estate like I wasn't even in the room with him.

The lawyer stood in the doorway and cleared his throat. He did not meet my eyes.

"Mrs. Sinclair, if we could begin," he said softly.

"She is not Mrs. Sinclair after today," Charlie cut him off. He still didn't turn. "Don't get sentimental."

It was a quiet kind of cruelty. He had never needed to shout.

 I picked up the pen. My fingers felt weak, so I put it down. I picked it up again, then dropped it back on the desk.

Three years. Three years he had lived in this house, eaten at his table, passed me in the hallways. For three years he had not looked at my face. Not at the wedding. Not at the breakfasts. Not once.

 In the early months, I used to think that if I stayed long enough, he would have to look. I thought if he looked at me, he would finally see the truth. He would understand.

I knew better now.

Charlie believed I did something terrible to my sister, Celeste. He thought I took three years of her life away from her. One time, I tried to explain what really happened, but he stopped me with a sentence I will never forget.

"If you say her name in this house again, I will make sure Helena Moreau does not get the surgery she has been waiting for," he had said. "I know which surgeon. I know the hospital. One phone call, Nora. That is all it takes me to make sure the surgery never happens."

I stopped trying after that. I did not stop hoping, but I stopped talking. Helena is the only person left in this world that I love, and Charlie knew exactly how to use her to keep me quiet. He studied me just so he could hurt me better.

Two months ago, there was a storm. The power went out across the estate. I met him on the back staircase in the dark. He did not move out of my way and I did not move out of his. He said my name in a voice I had not heard in three years. A hand against the side of my face that did not feel like hatred.

I woke the next morning in his bed and was afraid to breathe. His arm was across my waist. I had been awake for an hour before he was. For one hour, I let myself believe.

His phone rang at six.

He sat up so fast I felt the bed move. He said three words into the phone. "Where. How long has she been awake. I'm coming." He walked out of the bedroom without looking at me.

That afternoon, the staff began preparing the east wing for Celeste.

He had not looked at me since.

Charlie finally turned, but not to look at me. He looked at the lawyer.

"If she will not sign, remind her what we discussed about Mrs. Moreau."

My heart jumped. He was doing it again, using Helena to threaten me. I didn't say a word. I just picked up the pen.

The lawyer began to read the settlement papers out loud. I sat there listening to three years of my life being reduced to legal words and numbers. 

Three years of meals he did not eat with me. Three years of birthdays he did not celebrate with me. Three years of "Mrs. Sinclair" written on envelopes I was never allowed to open.

I watched Charlie's hands. They were in his pockets. His right one was clenched. I did not know what to do with that.

"Mrs. Sinclair. If you will," the lawyer said, pointing to the line.

I stopped for a second. I touched the scar on my left wrist with my thumb, just once. No one noticed… no one ever had. 

I signed my name. My hand did not shake. I made sure of that. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me tremble.

"Celeste is coming home tonight," Charlie said from the window. "She has nowhere else to stay. The staff will pack what is yours. What is actually yours."

He put a lot of weight on that word "actually." He wanted me to know that nothing in this house truly belonged to me.

"There’s a list," he added. "The lawyer has it. Anything not on the list stays in this house."

I stood up. I didn't look at him. I just turned to leave. I was almost at the door when he spoke again. It was the first time he had spoken directly to me in sixty-one days.

"Celeste lost three years of her life because of you, Nora. Consider a clean exit my wedding gift to her."

He said my name. Once. To tell me to leave.

I walked out into the foyer. Mrs. Adeline, the housekeeper, was waiting for me. She had worked for the Sinclairs since Charlie was a small boy, and she usually only spoke to me in whispers. She pressed a thick envelope into my hands. I could feel the bulk of the cash inside.

"That’s for the wasted years," Charlie’s voice echoed from the morning room.

Mrs. Adeline's eyes filled with tears. She reached out and touched my arm.

 "I'm sorry, Miss Nora. I am so, so sorry," she whispered. I did not cry.

 I folded the envelope in half and put it in my coat pocket. I walked out the front door of the Sinclair estate.

Rain started the moment I stepped outside. I didn't have a car waiting for me. The main gate was a mile away, so I just started walking. My shoes began to fill with water as I walked past the trees. 

I looked down. The wedding ring was still on my finger. I noticed this with the strange, distant clarity of a woman who has just realized she is still holding the knife after she has finished cutting herself.

My phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw the caller: Mercy General.

I stopped walking immediately.

"Ms. Vance? I'm calling from Mercy General," a nurse said. Her voice was too careful. "We have Mrs. Moreau in the ICU. She has been asking for you since this morning."

"Since when this morning?" I asked. My voice was sharp.

There was a short pause. "Since six a.m., ma'am. She would not let us call you. She said you had something you had to finish today. She said you would come when you were free, and not before."

Helena knew. She had been refusing to let them call me. She had spent her last conscious hours protecting my exit.

"How long does she have," I asked.

"Ma'am—"

"How long."

The nurse lowered her voice. "She is not asking for you anymore. She is asking the nurse to tell you something instead. She says it cannot wait until tomorrow. She says you need to hear it from her, in her own voice, while she still has one."

I didn't wait for her to finish. I started running.

I ran through the rain toward the only woman who ever believed me when no one else did. Not my father. Not the doctors. Not the man whose name was on the paper I had just signed. 

Her… only her. She had been waiting eleven hours to tell me something. From the voice on the phone… that careful, too careful, the way a person speaks when they are counting breaths… I already knew she did not have the time left to wait.

I ran anyway.