3. Jillian
— ? —
Jillian
The first Thursday, I understood.
“My mother needs me at the estate,” Trevor said over the phone, and I could hear the genuine exhaustion in his voice. “The lawyers found some discrepancy in the Hamptons property deed, and she’s convinced we’re about to lose the whole thing. Can we push dinner to Saturday?”
“Of course,” I said, because that’s what you say when your husband’s family is navigating a complicated transition. “Saturday’s perfect. I’ll move the reservation.”
Saturday became Sunday brunch at Margot’s, which had been standing for months anyway. Not ideal, but fine. Temporary adjustments for a temporary situation.
The second Thursday, I was less understanding but still trying.
“Chloe’s having trouble with the staff,” Trevor explained, this time via text because he was apparently too busy to call. “They’ve worked for us since before she left, and there’s some tension. I need to mediate.”
I stared at my phone for a full minute before typing back: No problem. Let me know when you’re free.
He sent a heart emoji. I sent one back. We were fine.
We were fine.
***
Sunday brunch arrived like a test I hadn’t studied for.
I walked into Margot’s sitting room carrying a bottle of the Sancerre she’d complimented last month, wearing the navy Reformation dress Trevor liked, my hair actually cooperating for once, and found Chloe Williams seated in my chair.
Not a chair. My chair. The one to Margot’s right, across from Trevor, where I’d sat for every brunch since the third month of our marriage when Margot had finally deemed me worthy of the inner circle.
“Jillian!” Margot’s smile was perfectly pleasant and completely unwelcoming. “How lovely. Trevor, darling, pull up the side chair from the study for her, would you?”
The side chair. The decorative Chippendale that had probably cost more than my first car and was roughly as comfortable. I watched Trevor hesitate, watched him register the problem, watched him decide not to make a scene.
“Of course,” he said, and went to get it.
Chloe offered me a sympathetic smile that somehow made everything worse. “Sorry, am I in your spot? Margot just sort of directed me here.”
“It’s fine,” I said, because what else could I say? Actually, that’s where I sit, and we all know it, and this is a power move so obvious it belongs in a nature documentary about dominance displays.
“Jillian brought the Sancerre.” I handed the bottle to Trevor as he returned with my exile chair. He examined the label with what looked like genuine pleasure.
“The 2019? This is perfect, thank you.”
“I remembered how much your mother enjoyed it last time.”
Margot’s expression suggested she did not, in fact, remember that. “How thoughtful. I’ll have Helena put it aside for later. We’re having the Montrachet with brunch. Chloe specifically requested it. She developed quite the palate in London.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Chloe demurred. “I just spent a lot of time in wine bars avoiding my own thoughts.”
“Ah, the therapeutic tradition,” I said. “A very good bottle instead of cognitive behavioral therapy.”
Trevor snorted. Chloe’s smile faltered. Margot pretended not to hear.
The first course arrived, some kind of deconstructed quiche situation that would have been two bites if I weren’t already losing my appetite, and Margot launched into what I would later recognize as phase one of her campaign.
“Chloe, you must tell Jillian about that summer at the Hamptons house. The one where you and Trevor convinced the staff you’d seen a ghost in the wine cellar.”
“Oh God.” Trevor actually laughed, a real laugh I hadn’t heard in weeks. “I forgot about that. We were what, twelve?”
“Eleven,” Chloe said. “You were twelve. I was always exactly fourteen months younger, and you never let me forget it.”
“Because you kept trying to boss me around.”
“I was organizing our activities. There’s a difference.”
They fell into the rhythm of people who’d known each other since before memory became reliable, trading details about the Hamptons ghost conspiracy, the sheets from the linen closet, the carefully recorded “spectral moans,” the housekeeper they’d traumatized so badly she’d quit.
Margot interjected periodically with corrections and additions. “Your father thought it was hilarious until the third housekeeper gave notice. Then suddenly ghost hunting was forbidden.”
I ate my quiche. I smiled at appropriate moments. I tried to find a way into a conversation built entirely on a foundation I couldn’t access.
“Jillian.” Margot turned to me with the air of someone remembering their manners. “Trevor mentioned you grew up in Brooklyn? How… interesting. Did your family summer anywhere?”
“The fire escape,” I said. “Excellent views. Very exclusive.”
Trevor reached for my hand under the table. “Jillian’s family has a place upstate now. Near…”
“Yes, you mentioned.” Margot’s attention was already back on Chloe. “Now, darling, tell me about the Beaumont wedding in Cap Ferrat. I heard Caroline’s dress was an absolute disaster.”
I excused myself to use the restroom somewhere around the third story about people I didn’t know doing things I’d never been invited to do. The hallway to the guest bath passed Margot’s study, and I might have taken my time if I hadn’t heard my name through the cracked door.
“…sweet enough, I suppose.” That was Margot. “But really, Chloe, you should have seen her at the Wentworth gala. Ordered completely the wrong wine for the table. The sommelier was mortified.”
I stopped walking.
“Poor thing.” Chloe’s voice, dripping sympathy. “She’s probably overwhelmed. Trevor’s world is a lot to navigate if you haven’t grown up in it.”
“Precisely what I keep telling him. Some people simply aren’t equipped. The breeding isn’t there.”
“Margot, that’s harsh.”
“Is it? I’m fond of her, truly. She’s clever and she clearly adores Trevor. But adoring someone isn’t the same as being able to stand beside them. There’s a reason these circles exist. A reason why some people belong inside them.”
I pressed my back against the wall and focused on breathing.
The Wentworth gala. I’d been at the Wentworth gala. I’d been at it three months ago, sitting at Trevor’s side, and I hadn’t ordered the wine because Margot had ordered the wine herself. She’d made a whole performance of it, consulting with the sommelier for ten minutes while the table waited.
The wrong wine hadn’t happened. She’d invented it.
“She does seem a bit out of her depth,” Chloe was saying. “But Trevor seems happy?”
“Trevor doesn’t know what he needs. He never has. That’s why he needs people who can guide him.”
I made myself walk to the bathroom. I made myself splash water on my face. I made myself walk back to the table and sit down in my exile chair and smile at these women who had just casually assassinated my character over a lie.
Trevor looked up when I returned. “Everything okay?”
“Perfect,” I said.
Under the table, I reached for his hand.
He started to take it. I felt his fingers brush mine, warm and familiar, and for a second I thought everything might be okay, that I could tell him later what I’d heard and he’d believe me and we’d figure this out together.
“Trevor, darling.” Margot’s voice cut through like crystal shattering. “Would you walk Chloe through the photo wall? She was asking about the renovation, and I know she’d love to see what’s changed.”
His fingers hesitated against mine. Then they withdrew.
“Of course.” He gave me an apologetic look that might have been sincere if I’d been capable of reading anything at that moment. “Be right back.”
I watched him walk away with her. Watched her hand rest casually on his arm as she laughed at a joke I couldn’t hear. Watched Margot watching me watch them, her face serene with victory.
The rest of brunch was a blur. I ate things. I said words. I performed being fine with such commitment that I almost convinced myself.
In the car afterward, Trevor’s hands flexed on the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry about today.”
I looked out the window. “Are you?”
“The chair thing was awkward. I should have said so.”
“Which awkward thing specifically? There were several to choose from.”
He sighed. “I know my mother can be… much. And I know this adjustment period is harder than I promised. Let me make it up to you this week. Dinner, just us. Wednesday, like old times.”
He meant it. I could hear him meaning it.
“You say that every week.”
Silence. Long enough to unspool between us like a thread neither of us wanted to pull.
“Jill…”
“Forget it.” I kept watching the city stream past. “I’m tired. We can talk later.”
He went quiet after that, choosing not to push. Maybe that was smart. Maybe that was kind. Maybe it was just easier for everyone if we pretended the bleeding was temporary, a wound that would clot on its own.
We spent the rest of Sunday doing the things couples do when they’re avoiding the things couples should discuss. He worked on his laptop. I read a book without absorbing a single word. We ordered pizza and watched a documentary about cults, which felt either ironic or prophetic.
By 10 p.m., I was willing to try again.
“Trevor.” I curled up next to him on the couch. “About today…”
“I know.” He pulled me close, kissed my hair. “I know it’s a lot. Chloe being here, my mother’s whole… thing. Just give me a few more weeks to get everyone settled. Then it’ll go back to normal.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I let myself believe him. What choice did I have? The alternative was admitting that normal might never come back, that I was watching my marriage erode in real time while being told it was just a trick of the light.
A slow, aching tune drifted from the speakers, the kind of song that threatened to crack a person open, and I closed my eyes against it.
At 11 p.m., his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen and tensed. I knew before he answered.
“Chloe? Slow down, what happened?”
I sat up. Watched him press the phone closer to his ear, his face shifting into crisis-management mode.
“Okay. Okay, I understand. No, don’t… just stay there. I’m coming.”
He was already standing, already reaching for his keys on the entry table.
“Trevor?”
“She’s at the estate. Some kind of crisis, I don’t know, she was crying too hard to explain. My mother’s not answering her phone.”
“Can’t someone else…”
“She’s scared, Jillian. She doesn’t have anyone else right now.”
Neither do I, I didn’t say. You’re supposed to be my anyone else, and you keep leaving.
“I’ll be an hour.” He was at the door, jacket already on. “Two at most. Then I’ll come straight back and we’ll talk about everything. I mean it.”
“You mean everything.”
“Everything.” He paused, one hand on the doorknob. “I love you.”
“I know.”
The front door closed.
I stared at it. I stared at it while the clock moved from 11:15 to 11:47 to 12:30.
I stared at it while my tea went cold and the documentary auto-played into another episode about another cult, people explaining how they’d stopped believing in themselves so gradually they hadn’t noticed until they were gone.
The couch held my shape. The house held its silence. My phone stayed dark on the cushion beside me.
At 2 a.m., I was still staring at the door.