Then she said, “Your mother visited me four times.”
I turned.
“She never came angry,” Emily continued. “That was the worst part. She brought tea once. Ginger, because she said it would help with nausea. She talked about your childhood. About how lonely you were after your father sent you to boarding school. She made me remember loving you before she asked me to disappear.”
My jaw tightened.
“She was always good at that.”
“At what?”
“Making the knife feel like a ribbon.”
Emily’s eyes softened despite herself, as if some private understanding had passed between us.
“She said the Mercer family breaks women who confuse affection with belonging.”
I looked down.
“She told my sister something similar before Grace left for London.”
Emily frowned. “Your sister?”
“You met her once at the wedding. She came late and left before dinner.”
“The one your mother said was unstable?”
I almost laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Grace was the only sane one in that house.”
“Why didn’t you ever talk about her?”
“Because she asked me not to.” I looked back at Emily. “She cut ties after my father died. I thought she wanted freedom from all of us.”
Emily’s expression changed.
“What?”
“The last time your mother came,” she said slowly, “she mentioned Grace.”
A pressure built behind my ribs.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Lucas should have learned from his sister what happens when women mistake silence for safety.’”
For a moment, the room seemed to tilt again.
Grace had left seven years ago after a breakdown no one in the family discussed. My mother called it exhaustion. My father called it weakness. Grace called me once from London, told me never to trust any explanation that made Vivian Mercer look wounded.
I had been twenty-nine and too loyal to listen.
I took out my phone and searched for my sister’s number. It was still there, buried beneath years of cowardice.
I pressed call.
It rang five times.
Then a woman answered, voice cautious and familiar.
“Lucas?”
Hearing her say my name almost undid me.