4. Karlie
— ? —
Karlie
The Hunt estate looks exactly the same as it did three years ago.
Same stone facade, same ivy climbing the walls, same feeling that nobody inside is allowed to be real. I smooth down my dress, black, conservative, armor, and wait for William to come around to my side of the car.
He doesn’t.
He’s already walking toward the front door, shoulders tight, jaw set. I watch him go for a moment, then get out of the car myself and follow.
This is the first family dinner since Logan vanished. Cassidy insisted. Family unity, she’d said on the phone, her voice brittle. We need to present a united front. The world is watching.
The world isn’t watching. The world doesn’t care about the Hunts’ monthly dinner theater. But Cassidy cares, and what Cassidy wants, Cassidy gets.
William holds the door for me, at least. Small mercies. I step inside, and the smell hits me immediately, furniture polish and lilies and money. The same smell from that first dinner, when I was twenty-two and stupid enough to think I could make this work.
“William. Karlie.” Cassidy appears in the foyer, her smile tight. “So glad you could make it.”
“Mother.” William leans in to kiss her cheek. “You look well.”
“I look exhausted. We all are.” She turns that smile on me. “Karlie. That dress is… interesting.”
“Thank you, Cassidy. I bought it specifically for tonight.”
Her smile tightens further. “How thoughtful.”
She leads us into the dining room, and I stop dead in the doorway.
The place cards have been rearranged.
Helen is seated at William’s right hand. His right hand, where I sat at our wedding dinner, where a wife is supposed to sit. My card is across the table, between two empty chairs, positioned like an afterthought.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Cassidy says. “I thought Helen could use some comfort tonight. She’s been having such a hard time.”
Helen looks up at me from her seat, and her smile is pure victory.
“Karlie,” she says warmly. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was just telling Cassidy how much I’ve missed our little chats.”
We have never had a chat, little or otherwise. I don’t point this out. I just walk to my assigned seat and sit down, my back straight, my face neutral.
William hesitates for just a second before taking his place next to Helen. I watch him sit down. I watch her lean toward him immediately, her hand finding his arm with practiced ease.
“Do you remember the summer we all went to the Hamptons?” Helen asks, her voice bright with manufactured nostalgia. “When Logan convinced you to go skinny dipping at midnight, and your mother nearly had a heart attack?”
“I remember,” William says quietly.
“We were so young.” Helen sighs. “Sixteen, maybe? Seventeen? You were so serious even then, always with your nose in some business book while Logan and I tried to get you to have fun.” She laughs, the sound light and musical. “Some things never change.”
I sit across the table and listen to stories about a life I wasn’t part of, told by a woman who wants to make sure I know I don’t belong in this one.
“Oh, and remember the time Logan dared you to eat that entire jar of pickles?” Helen continues, warming to her performance. “You were so sick afterward, but you wouldn’t admit it. You just sat there at dinner, green as grass, insisting you were fine.”
“Helen,” William says, a note of warning in his voice.
“I’m just reminiscing.” She pats his arm. “We have so many memories together, the three of us. It’s important to hold onto those, especially now.”
Especially now that I can’t make any new memories with you, she doesn’t say. But we all hear it anyway.
Dinner is a performance in three acts.
The first act belongs to Terrence.
“The detectives are useless,” he announces, stabbing at his steak with unnecessary violence. “Four months and nothing. Not a single credible lead. I’m paying these people a fortune, and they can’t find one man?”
“They’re doing their best,” William says quietly. “These things take time.”
“Time.” Terrence snorts. “Time is money, William. Time is reputation. Every day Logan is missing, the vultures circle a little closer. The board is asking questions. The shareholders are nervous. This family cannot afford to look weak.”
“We’re not trying to look anything. We’re trying to find my brother.”
“And failing.” Terrence points his fork at William. “You need to take charge of this. Call the lead detective. Demand a progress report. Make it clear that continued incompetence will not be tolerated.”
“I spoke with him yesterday…”
“Then speak with him again. Daily. Hourly if necessary.” Terrence’s voice rises. “Your brother is out there somewhere, and these people are treating it like a routine missing persons case. It’s not routine. He’s a Hunt. He’s your brother. Act like it matters to you.”
“It matters to me,” William says, and his voice is strained now, the first crack in his composure. “It matters more than anything.”
“Then prove it.”
The silence that follows is thick and uncomfortable. I watch William’s jaw tighten, watch him swallow whatever response he wants to give.
Helen reaches over and puts her hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We all know how hard you’re working. Your father is just worried.”
William doesn’t shake off her hand. He doesn’t even seem to notice it.
The second act belongs to Cassidy.
“So, Karlie,” she says, delicately cutting her asparagus into precise little pieces. “What have you been doing with yourself lately? Still… keeping house?”
“I’ve been busy,” I say. “Supporting William through a difficult time.”
“Hmm.” She tilts her head, examining me. “And how is that going? It must be hard, not really understanding what the family is going through. You didn’t know Logan very well, did you?”
“I knew him well enough.”
“Of course you did. But it’s different, isn’t it?
When it’s not really your family. When you haven’t grown up with someone, shared holidays and birthdays and all those little moments that make a family a family.
” She sighs. “I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to truly belong somewhere you weren’t born into. ”
“I wonder that too,” I say. “Usually when I’m sitting at a dinner table surrounded by people who keep reminding me I don’t belong.”
Cassidy’s smile freezes.
“And speaking of family,” she continues, recovering quickly, “when can we expect some news on the nursery front? You’ve been married three years now. I had both my boys by twenty-five.”
“We’re focusing on other things right now, Cassidy.”
“Other things.” She exchanges a look with Helen, a look that makes my stomach turn. “Well. I suppose everyone has their own timeline. Though I do think it’s important to consider these things sooner rather than later. A woman’s fertility doesn’t last forever, you know.”
“Thank you for the biology lesson.”
“I’m just saying, dear, that if you’re having trouble, there are specialists. Doctors who can help. We’d be happy to pay, of course. The continuation of the Hunt line is important to all of us.”
“I had two boys and I still worry it isn’t enough,” she adds. “A family like ours can never have too many heirs.”
I set down my fork. “The continuation of the Hunt line is between me and my husband. Not a topic for dinner conversation.”
“Everything is a topic for dinner conversation in this family.” Cassidy’s smile is sharp. “We don’t keep secrets from each other. We don’t pretend that difficult subjects don’t exist. That’s what makes us strong.”
“That’s what makes you intrusive,” I say. “There’s a difference.”
Terrence clears his throat. “Ladies.”
“I’m just concerned for her,” Cassidy says, her voice all fake sweetness. “A woman alone in that big house all day, with nothing to do and no children to care for… it can’t be good for the mind. I’ve read studies about it. Isolation does terrible things to people.”
“I’m not isolated. I have friends. I have activities.”
“Do you?” Cassidy tilts her head. “I never see you at the club. You don’t come to my charity events unless you absolutely have to. You barely participate in family gatherings.” She gestures around the table. “Even tonight, you seem like you’d rather be anywhere else.”
“Can you blame me?”
The question hangs in the air. Cassidy’s eyes narrow.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means…” I start.
“It means nothing,” William cuts in, and his voice is flat, final. “Karlie’s tired. We’re all tired. Can we please just get through this dinner without turning it into an interrogation?”
Cassidy’s gaze moves from me to her son and back again. Whatever she sees makes her smile.
“Of course, darling,” she says sweetly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
The third act belongs to Helen.
“I keep thinking about that last Christmas,” she says, her voice wistful. “Do you remember, Will? When Logan got you that ridiculous tie, the one with the little dogs on it?”
“I remember.”
“You hated it.” Helen laughs. “Your face when you opened the box, I’ve never seen anyone look so horrified and polite at the same time. But you wore it all day, because Logan asked you to.”
“He was my brother.”
“He was.” Helen’s eyes fill with tears, actual tears this time, or a very good approximation.
“He was so many things to so many people. My boyfriend for seven years. Your brother. Cassidy and Terrence’s son.
” She dabs at her eyes with a napkin. “And now he’s just…
gone. And we don’t know why, or where, or if we’ll ever see him again. ”
“Helen,” Cassidy says softly. “Darling.”
“I’m sorry.” Helen waves her hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring down the mood. It’s just… being here, in this house, without him… it brings back so many memories.”
She reaches across the table and puts her hand on top of William’s. Right there, in front of everyone. Her fingers curl around his, and she squeezes gently.
“Thank God I have you,” she says, her voice trembling. “I don’t know what I would have done these past four months without you.”
I wait for William to move his hand.
He doesn’t.
He’s a thousand miles away, gray and exhausted, buried under his father’s pressure and his mother’s expectations. I can see it in the set of his shoulders, the hollows under his eyes. He’s barely present.
But his hand stays under Helen’s.
“You’ve been so strong,” Helen continues, her thumb moving in slow circles over his knuckles.
“So steady. Just like you’ve always been.
Remember when we were kids and I fell off that horse at your parents’ estate?
I was so scared, and you just walked over and picked me up and told me everything was going to be okay.
” She smiles tremulously. “You’ve always been my rock. ”
“Helen,” I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I intended.
She looks at me with wide, innocent eyes. “Yes?”
“Your mascara is running.”
It’s not, actually. Her makeup is, as always, completely flawless. But I watch her hand fly to her face anyway, and I watch her break contact with my husband to check her reflection in the back of a spoon.
It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it.
“I need some air,” I say, pushing back from the table. “Excuse me.”
I don’t wait for permission. I walk out of the dining room, through the foyer, and out the front door into the cold night air.
The car is still in the driveway. I lean against it and try to breathe.
The door opens behind me.
William appears, his expression tight. “Karlie. What are you doing?”
“Getting air.” I don’t look at him. “Go back inside.”
“We should talk about…”
“You didn’t move your hand.”
He stops. “What?”
“Helen. She put her hand on yours, in front of your entire family, and you just sat there.” I turn to face him.
“While your mother interrogated me about my fertility, while your father acted like Logan being missing is a PR problem, while Helen performed her grieving-girlfriend routine for the hundredth time, you just sat there and let it all happen.”
“It’s a hand, Karlie. I’m trying to keep this family from flying apart. I can’t police every small…”
“It’s not a small thing.” I push off from the car. “It’s a pattern. A pattern of you letting her touch you, comfort you, claim you, while I sit across the table like a stranger who wandered in off the street.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I?” I laugh, and it sounds hollow. “Your mother spent half that dinner implying I’m failing at being a wife because I haven’t produced an heir yet.
Your father spent the other half reminding everyone that the Hunt name is more important than the people attached to it.
And Helen sat there holding your hand and talking about how you’ve always been her rock, and you just let her. ”
“She’s grieving…”
“And who’s keeping us from flying apart?” The words come out louder than I intended. “Who’s worrying about our marriage, William? Because it sure as hell isn’t you.”
He flinches. For just a second his face goes raw, pain or guilt or an exhaustion so deep it’s eating him alive.
“I’m doing the best I can,” he says quietly. “I know it’s not enough. I know I’ve been…”
From inside the house, there’s a crash. Then Cassidy’s voice, high and panicked: “Helen! Oh God, someone help! William!”
William’s head snaps toward the sound. His whole body goes tense.
“William…” I start.
He looks at me. He looks at the house.
And then he turns and walks back inside.
I stand there in the cold, watching the door close behind him. I wait for him to come back out, to finish our conversation, to show any sign that I matter more than whatever performance is happening in that dining room.
He doesn’t.
After ten minutes, I get in the car, start the engine, and drive myself home alone.