Three Weeks Later
I'd been back to work for a week.
Seven days of heels and contracts and Maria putting coffee on my desk without saying "I'm sorry for your loss" because she'd said it once and I'd looked at her like she'd slapped me. Seven days of Vega Holdings moving forward while I counted hours. Earnings calls. The Liang acquisition. Board meetings where I nodded and signed and went home to a house that was quiet in a way that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with Alexandra.
We didn't talk about that night. We didn't talk about the way he held me until my ribs stopped trying to cave in. We didn't talk about Clause 5.1. We talked about Renoir. We talked about the gala. We talked about everything that wouldn't break us if we said it out loud.
He worked late. I worked early. We passed each other at 6:40 a.m. with coffee and files and two inches of air between us that used to be a contract and was now just… undefined. He didn't touch me again. I didn't ask. The silence between us was new. Neither of us had named it yet.
Yesterday, my father called.
Richard Hale didn't call. Richard Hale scheduled. But yesterday at 4:03 p.m., my phone lit up: "Dad – Mobile." I let it ring three times. Answering Richard Hale on the first ring meant you were available. I wasn't available. I was barely functional.
"Katrina." His voice was the same as it was during depositions. Flat. Expensive. "I'm glad I caught you."
"I'm at work," I said. My voice matched his. We'd learned from the same playbook.
"Right. Of course. Listen, Laura is going to come stay with you for a week."
My pen stopped on the Liang file. Ink bled into the margin. "What?"
"Your sister. She wants to come pay her respects. She said it's been weighing on her. She'd like to stay with you. At the penthouse. I told her you'd make the arrangements."
Laura was my half-sister. Richard's daughter with Eleanor. His wife. Eleanor was still alive. She and Richard had Evans first. Then they had Laura. Eleanor gave birth to Evans and Laura. Richard never had another wife. Eleanor was his only wife.
My mother was his mistress. She was never his wife. She was never Eleanor. She got sick. She went to the hospital. Room 412. Oncology. She died there with a nurse holding her hand because I was stuck in traffic on the FDR.
Laura was thirty. I was thirty-two. Two years between us and Richard's entire history.
"Why?" The word was out before I could file it down. "Why now?"
"Because she's your family," he said, like that meant something. "And family shows up."
Family hadn't shown up to the hospital. Family hadn't shown up to the cremation. Richard sent flowers. Eleanor sent a card with her name printed, not signed. Laura sent nothing. Not a text. Not a call. Not a single word when Mama's obituary ran in the Times.
"Did she say why?" I pressed. "Did Laura say why she wants to stay here? With me and Alexandra?"
"She said you needed your sister," he said. "I'll let you two sort the details. I have a tee time. Take care, Katrina."
He hung up.
I sat there for twenty minutes. The Liang numbers blurred. Laura. Here. For a week. In the penthouse. With Alexandra.
I didn't know why she was coming. I didn't know what she wanted. I only knew she'd told Richard to call me. And Richard had sounded… off. Like he was repeating something he didn't write.
I didn't tell Alexandra. Not yet. I went home and stood in the kitchen and listened to the refrigerator hum. The guest room door was closed. It had been closed since I moved in. The bed was made. The surfaces were empty.
Laura was arriving Sunday.
It was Thursday.
I had three days to figure out why my half-sister was coming to visit. I had three days to figure out why she'd waited until now. I had three days to figure out what she wanted from a house that had just figured out how to be quiet again.
I opened the fridge. Took out a bottle of water. My hands were steady.
Grief didn't get to keep your motor functions. It just took the parts that mattered.
I drank. It hurt.
Then I went to the guest room and opened the door. The closet was empty and dark.
One week, Richard said. One week with a sister I barely knew.
I closed the door.
Sunday was coming.