After the Honest Woman Was Driven Mad

I was carrying the champagne when Julian Vale asked me to marry him. The words landed over the clink of silverware and the low surf beyond the windows of our dining room. My sister, Claire, sat beside him in the blue dress she had bought for their engagement dinner. His ring was on her hand. My mother had just raised her glass to toast the couple. I stopped with the bottle tilted over my father's glass. Julian's gaze stayed on me. His face had gone pale beneath the warm light, but his voice didn't shake. "Lena," he said. "I want to marry you." For half a second, I thought I'd misunderstood. I glanced at Claire. Her hand rested on the white tablecloth, the diamond catching light each time her fingers trembled. "Julian," she said. He lifted one hand toward her, then let it fall. "I'm sorry." My mother made a sharp sound. My father pushed back his chair. I set the bottle down before I dropped it. "You're asking me to marry you?" "I am." "Why?" His jaw tightened. I saw a faint pulse move at his throat. "Because I can't ask Claire to spend her life waiting for me to die." The room went quiet enough for me to hear the sea against the rocks below the inn. Claire stood. "You can't decide what I can bear." "I know what my doctors told me." "You told me we'd face it together." "I thought I could. I was wrong." My mother's fingers closed around my wrist. "What have you done?" I pulled my hand free. "Nothing." Julian's eyes stayed on me, and I hated that everyone could see the shame on his face but not the decision behind it. "I'm sorry," I said to Claire. "Don't," she replied. "Don't make this easier for him." My father came around the table. "We'll discuss this in private." "No," Claire said. "You'll discuss it right here. You've all been making decisions for me since I was a child. I'm not letting you turn this into a family meeting." She slipped the ring from her finger and placed it beside her plate. Then she walked through the open doors to the terrace. I took a step after her. My father caught my elbow. "Stay," he muttered. I stared at his hand until he released me. Then I followed Claire outside. She had reached the low stone wall overlooking the water. The evening wind tugged at her hair. I stopped a few feet away. "Claire." She didn't turn around. "Did you know?" "No." "Did he ever say anything to you?" "No." "Did you want him to?" The question hurt because she sounded like she expected the answer to be yes. "No," I said. "I never wanted him." She faced me. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. "Then why you?" "I don't know." The terrace doors opened behind me. Julian stepped out alone. "I can explain," he said. Claire gave a bitter laugh. "You've had months to explain. You chose tonight." "I thought it would be kinder to tell you when both families were here." "That was kinder?" He looked at her, then at me. "I didn't want you to be alone with the worst of it." "You wanted witnesses," I said. Julian flinched. For the first time, I saw his composure c***k. "I wanted to make the choice clean." "Your choice," Claire said. "Not mine. Not hers." My father appeared at the doors. "This is enough. Claire, come inside. Lena, too." Claire moved toward the house, but not to obey him. She took her coat from the back of a chair and walked past us. My father called her name. She didn't stop. I watched her headlights turn down the drive before I went inside. The ring remained beside Claire's plate. The dinner guests had gone silent. My mother stood beside my father, one hand pressed to her mouth. "You've embarrassed this family," she said to me. "I didn't ask him." "Don't be ridiculous. You've been alone with him for months." "Because Claire asked me to drive him to appointments when she had to work." My father shut the terrace doors. "You should have known how it looked." "I was doing my sister a favor." "You have always been very good at that," my mother said. "Making yourself indispensable." I felt the old instinct to smooth things over rise in me. I swallowed it. "Don't blame me for something I didn't do." My father's face darkened. "The Vales are discussing a partnership with the inn. We've spent a year negotiating. If you make this uglier, we lose everything." So that was what mattered. I looked past him at the empty chair where Claire had been sitting. "Then maybe you should have thought of that before letting Julian turn her engagement into a public rejection." My mother slapped the table. "You always know exactly where to put the knife." I left the dining room before I said something I couldn't take back. Upstairs, I opened my phone and typed a message to Claire. I didn't know. I swear. The message showed as delivered. No answer came. At midnight, my father knocked on my bedroom door. He didn't come in. "Julian's staying at the Vale house," he said. "The families will meet tomorrow. You'll be there." "I won't." "You will. This has to be contained." I leaned against the door. "I'm not marrying him." A pause followed. "You don't understand what's at stake." "I understand exactly what's at stake. You want me to clean up a mess I didn't make." "You live under my roof." I glanced at my suitcase beneath the bed, still unpacked from the last time I'd threatened to leave. "Then I guess I should decide whether I want to keep doing that." My father didn't answer. His footsteps retreated down the hall. I looked at Claire's unanswered message again. Then I opened my laptop and started checking the inn's accounts. If my father was willing to use my life as a bargaining chip, I wanted to know what else he'd put at risk.