The Carter mansion knows how to throw grace like a net.
Crystal chandeliers spill themselves into pools across marble, orchids float like expensive thoughts, and James moves through the room as if every handshake is a small mortgage. Tonight the house is fuller than usual—donors in their Sunday-best, city council types pretending to be saints, and a dozen cameras parked politely in the corners like curious birds. The gala is supposed to be a balm: a public stitch to the town’s wounds, money raised for the community center, another night where James leads the applause and pretends everything can be smoothed with speeches.
I should feel proud. Instead my ribs are tight and the babies inside me kick like a small rebellion. Pregnancy has the strange kindness of making fear feel physically ur
