Chapter 324

[ 1,033 words ]

Katia’s POV

I felt Julian’s eyes on me long after I walked back to my mother, the weight of them settling somewhere between my shoulder blades the way they always did when he was watching me work a room he disapproved of, but I had a dinner to host and a family to manage, and there was no room tonight for whatever conversation his stare was trying to start.

Martha had migrated toward the bar cart, a fresh glass of champagne already in her hand, watching Jude move through my living room with the kind of open fondness she had never once aimed in my direction for anything I had built on my own.

“He really is wonderful,” she said, to no one in particular, though clearly meant for the whole room to hear. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a son-in-law quite like him p>

“Mother p>

“I mean it,” she continued, raising her glass slightly in Jude’s direction as he laughed at something Dad had said near the window. “The gifts, the warmth, the way he simply walked into this family and made himself at home. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I told your father just last week, I said, that man treats us better than half the people who’ve actually known us for years p>

Something in my chest, already strained thin from three days of throwing up in the mornings and a folder full of evidence I had been carrying around like a loaded weapon, finally gave way.

“Did either of you ever ask,” I said, my voice quieter than I expected it to come out, “if I was happy with him p>

The room did not go silent immediately. Dad was still laughing at something near the window, and Jude had not yet noticed the shift in my tone, but Martha turned to face me fully, her glass lowering an inch.

“What kind of question is that?” she said.

“A simple one,” I said. “Did you ever ask if I was happy? Or did you only ever ask what he brought p>

“Katia p>

“Did you know?” I said, and I felt my hands curl at my sides, the folder Sam had given me sitting somewhere in my mind like a held breath, “that he raised a hand on me p>

The room went quiet then.

Jude’s laughter died somewhere in his throat. Dad turned from the window, his glass frozen halfway to his mouth. Delia, who had been half listening from across the room, turned fully toward us now, her expression caught somewhere between alarm and disbelief.

“What are you talking about,” Martha said, her voice dropping, the bright social register she had been performing all evening cracking for the first time since she walked through my door.

“I am talking about my husband,” I said, “putting his hands on me hard enough to leave marks, and none of you ever once asking why I wore long sleeves to the last three dinners we’ve had together p>

“That’s not,” Jude started, finding his voice, color rushing back into his face, “that’s not what happened, Katia; you’re twisting p>

“Am I?” I asked, turning to look at him directly for the first time since this conversation began, and something in my expression must have warned him, because he stopped talking entirely.

Martha set her glass down on the bar cart, the sound sharper than she probably intended, her hand trembling slightly as she did it.

“Why would you say something like that,” she said, “in front of everyone at dinner instead of coming to me directly p>

“Because I have tried coming to you directly,” I said. “For years. About far smaller things than this. And every single time, you found a way to make it about something other than whether I was actually being treated well. So forgive me if I no longer trust that a private conversation with you would have ended any differently than this one is about to p>

“This one,” Martha repeated. “What is that supposed to mean p>

“It means,” I said, my voice climbing now, something hot and finally unleashed moving through my chest, “that I am done sitting quietly while you call him the perfect son-in-law because he buys you pearls and crystal decanters, while none of you have ever once asked whether the man wearing that title is actually a good man. Or whether you are simply happy to keep receiving gifts from whoever happens to be standing in that role at the time p>

David had gone entirely still near the window, his drink forgotten in his hand, his eyes moving between his wife and his daughter with the lost, faintly panicked expression of a man who had spent his entire life avoiding exactly this kind of conversation and had no idea how to navigate one now that it had arrived uninvited at his daughter’s dinner table.

Jude opened his mouth again.

“Katia, I think there’s been some confusion p>

“There hasn’t been,” I said, not even looking at him this time. “There’s been a great deal of confusion in this family lately, Jude. Just not about that p>

Martha’s hand had drifted up to the pearls at her throat, the gesture she always made when a room grew sharper than she had planned for, except tonight there was no recovering the warmth she had been performing only minutes earlier. Her face had gone pale beneath her careful makeup, something genuinely shaken moving behind her eyes for the first time all evening.

“Katia,” she said again, quieter now, “I had no idea p>

“You never asked,” I said. “That’s the part I can’t forgive. Not that you didn’t know. That you never once thought to ask p>

Across the room, Delia had gone very still, her wine glass forgotten in her hand, her eyes fixed on me with an expression I could not entirely read, something that looked almost like fear, though I could not yet tell whether it was fear for me or fear of what I might say next.

I had a feeling I was about to find out which.

“Maybe,” Delia said suddenly, her voice cutting across the room, sharper than I expected, “you’re acting like this because you actually want something else entirely p>

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