(Rebecca's POV)
Joanna's face cycles — outrage, disbelief, the blood rising to her cheeks. Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. She looks at Sean like he broke a rule she didn't know could be broken — and maybe he did. In all her years running the guest lists and the moods and the small humiliations, her son has never turned the blade her way. Her jaw works. Nothing comes out.
Ivy's fork hangs midair. Suspended. Eyes wide. Mouth parted. And for once — the first time I can remember — she has nothing to say.
The cousins go rigid. Lisa's friends sit like statues, napkins folded in their laps. The whole table freezes — not a dropped-glass wrong. A wall-just-collapsed wrong, everyone staring at the hole and not sure what lives on the other side.
I watch Sean.
He's standing in his grandmot
