The guests left by four-thirty.
The house exhaled in the particular way it did after events, staff moving through the public rooms collecting glasses and folding linens, the floral arrangements left in place because Margaret never dismantled the decoration on the same day, and the family dispersing to their separate corners with the quiet efficiency of people who had performed together for several hours and needed to stop.
I went upstairs.
I changed out of the pale green dress and sat on the edge of my bed in the specific stillness of someone who had just navigated something difficult and needed a moment before they could assess how well they had managed it. The announcement had happened. Victor had made it in front of thirty people who would carry the story into the social ecosystem of
