Chapter 11 – Finn – Beyond the Line
When I finally step out of the vehicle, I force myself not to chase Ariane. There’s nothing I can do there but make things worse. I know that.
At least there’s hell to corral into submission all over the Wagner estate.
The front doors are propped open, and I see the carrion of the party remains fumbling around in skittish pieces.
Everything is too bright and half-empty all at once.
Caterers carry their trays to a van like they’re ferrying the dead.
Two photographers are huddled by the coat closet muttering unsubtly while they scroll through shots they definitely won’t be fucking selling to the highest bidder.
Not on my fucking watch.
“Hey,” I snap, crooking a finger at the photographers, summoning them. They have the good sense to at least look fucking terrified. It doesn’t soften my tone when I demand, “Cameras.”
“We… sir, these are our…”
“Cameras,” I repeat, bored.
The one with the beard swallows and passes his over like I’ve asked for a kidney.
Aggrieved, I scroll through a dozen images fast, string lights, Eleanor laughing with a senator’s wife, the moment the crowd turned, the point where a white-shirt arm appears in the corner and everything blurs.
I find one that shows too much fear on Ariane’s face and have to swallow down my fury.
“You’re going to wipe anything that shows medical personnel, or any member of this family in any form of distress,” I say, meeting their eyes one at a time. “If I see a single frame anywhere online, I will own your careers by lunch.”
The clean-shaven one tries a smile. “We can sign an NDA…”
“You’re not listening.” I pass the first camera back, then tap my phone on my palm. “You’ll send me these. I’ll pay you twice your rate to erase the rest. You’ll take the money and go home grateful you met me instead of a lawyer. Deal?”
Beard nods so fast his glasses slip down the bridge of his nose.
Pivoting away, I find that the quartet is still here too. They’re holding their instruments like shields.
“You’re done,” I tell them. “That should’ve been clear when the party ended with ambulances.”
Are people really this fucking stupid?
I shove envelopes into hands, overpaying, because I can’t quite begrudge the working people just trying to outlast the rich. “Pack up. Take the lawn exit. Don’t talk to anyone on the way.”
The leader, cellist, mid-forties, eyes like he’s seen worse, bows slightly. “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir.”
I watch them go until the last case clicks shut.
I turn to the bar.
Two stragglers are arranging their faces into pity. “Party’s over,” I say, clipping the words short. “Out.”
“We’re family friends,” one of them tries to appeal, as if that’s going to help. As if that means anything to me.
“So, you’ll understand why I’m not asking twice,” I reply, straining to maintain a grasp on my patience.
It’s withering away minute by minute. I draw a breath through my clenched teeth, and attempt softening just enough to make compliance feel like their idea.
“It’s been too eventful an evening. Car service is out front.
Take it. Tomorrow you can send flowers. My stepmother would greatly appreciate that, I’m sure. ”
They look at each other and probably decide they’ve already had enough excitement for their Christmas letters. They finally go.
I wade deeper into the house, just to run into Maria, the housekeeper with a good heart and a paycheck that’s not nearly big enough to be dealing with Eleanor on a daily basis.
“We can finish the breakdown, Mr. Wagner,” she says in a small voice. “Mrs. Wagner usually…”
“She’s at the hospital.” I thumb toward the service hall. “You’re done here, too. Everyone clocks out now.” The crew shifts, relief sneaking onto faces they’ve been trained to keep blank. “Maria, leave me the keys and the alarm code. I’ll lock up.”
She hesitates. “Are you sure, Mr. Finn?”
“I know where everything is. I’ve been here longer than any of you,” I say, though it’s not necessarily true.
I left this fucking place a long time ago—though I can’t seem to stay the hell away, can I?
Thankfully, no one tries to correct me. I can lock up fine, but I’m not sure how well I’d clean up after the resultant bloodbath. “Go home.”
Warily, she acquiesces, leaving me with a giant ring riddled with keys. Normal people would’ve just upgraded the security system to something completely automatic by now, but not Eleanor.
I sigh as Maria squeezes my arm and mutters a prayer in Spanish on her way to the staff door.
I move through the rooms putting things back in boxes and people back in their cars.
It’s method more than mercy. It keeps my hands busy while my head replays the car in loops: her breath interrupting the radio, the way her mouth opened like she was daring herself not to stop, the tiny sound she made when I slid my hand to the warm line of her waist. If I quiet the house enough, maybe it’ll stop. It doesn’t.
The lawn is a graveyard of glass cylinders, tea lights stuttering in their last quarter-inch of wax.
I blow them out one by one, the smell of extinguished flame ghosting up in little sighs.
I roll up linen with the efficiency of a man who grew up in a place where you do your own cleanup or sleep in the mess.
When the last rental rack is stacked by the service drive, I tip the driver extra and lie, “We’ll send someone to sign in the morning.”
Inside, the silence finally settles like dust after a demolition. The foyer is a shell of rented chandeliers still warm, roses already slumping in expensive sighs, confetti of leaf litter tracked in by a hundred shoes and all of it so fucking performative it makes my teeth hurt.
I lock the doors.
For a long minute I just stand in the middle of the foyer and let the chandeliers glare down at me.
Eleanor ordered them to look like stars.
The roses along the banister are starting to wither at the edges, even though they came in on refrigerated trucks and a florist with a headset wired the whole staircase like it was a patient.
I can’t help but think about how this house doesn’t really belong to anyone.
Not to my mother, long gone. She’s been dead long enough that her scent is a memory you can only catch in summer linen closets and the last book she left facedown.
Not to Eleanor, no matter how many rentals she bolts onto the bones.
Not even to Dad, no matter what all the goddamn paperwork says, even though he pays the taxes and opens the door for everyone.
My childhood home is no more than a stage set built on the foundation of something that used to be so, so alive.
###
I pour myself two fingers of bourbon and take a sip.
To think, I’d been nursing this very drink when it all went to hell.
Now, the liquor just tastes like regret.
I set it down and watch the light go through it.
The glass leaves a ring on the antique where Eleanor will see it and pitch a fucking fit. I can’t even pretend to give a shit.
Upstairs, I hear floorboards creak. Eleanor can dress this house as much as wants; it has old bones that give whoever haunts it away. Tonight, the movement can only be Ariane. There’s no one else left.
I could draw a map of the path from the third stair-step that always gives, to the landing that swallows sound, to the far corridor where the wallpaper still has a bubble she used to press because it made her laugh.
I don’t move toward it even though every part of my body wants to.
But the tether in my chest pulls, taut, insistent, a line tied years ago and refused every time I pretended I didn’t feel it.
I sit on the bottom step like a trespasser and let memory do what it wants.
I already buried one parent. I can’t bear to bury another.
My phone is buzzing in the pocket of my jacket. When I fish it out, I find notifications from Eric, three missed calls; Scarlett, two messages that are equal parts claws and perfume; airline reminders reminding me of the first-class seat that will not see me tomorrow.
I type the only email that matters.
Eric, cancel everything. Personal emergency. I’m off grid for God knows how long. Keep the Toronto deal warm. Handle Scarlett.
He’ll translate it into something that doesn’t start a fire. That’s why he gets paid.
I shut the phone off and the quiet goes from loud to cavernous.
I take the bourbon again and make it halfway through the swallow before the upstairs step creaks a second time, farther down the hall, softer, settling.
I can see it: her slipping into a too-hot shower, water thundering over the places my hands warmed, the velvet dress pooling on tile like a green lake, her palm braced on cool wall while she tries to wash off something she’s already wearing under her skin.
Guilt will come for her first like it always does in these situations. Then anger, then negotiation.
She’ll make a list: mother, stepfather, fiancé, optics.
She’ll put me at the bottom.
I don’t regret the kiss. I don’t regret a fucking second of it.
If that makes me messed up, join the club; I built the clubhouse and locked the door from the inside.
I’ve tried for ten years to be the version of myself who can come back, nod, toast, leave.
Tonight blew that right out of the water.
I’m done negotiating with appetites that were born when I wasn’t looking.
Yeah, she’s my step-sister but it’s not like I give a shit.
At least we’re not related by blood. That’s what I tell myself.
Staying in this house with Ariane while Julian plays perfect fiancé is going to be a problem. If I have to watch him wrap an arm around her shoulders and talk to her like he’s translating life into bullet points, I’ll find something else to break so I don’t break him.
I set the glass down next to the ring it already left and climb the stairs. At the landing, I pause. Her door is shut. There’s light under it. I could knock. I could walk past. I could be a better man than I am.
I do none of those. I stand there a breath too long, before turning toward my room. Sheets I won’t sleep on. A chair I’ll wear down with pacing. A balcony where the lake cuts a black grin across the night like it knows I’ll come outside and try to scare it into telling me what happens next.
I crack the balcony door for air and the cold reaches in like a hand. The dock is a pale slash. Somewhere out there the boards remember bare feet. I lean my forearms on the rail until they ache and close my eyes like that’ll save me.
I should have left years ago without looking back.
Now, I can’t.
There’s a list of things that need to get done tomorrow.
Hospital at dawn. Talk to the cardiologist without Eleanor translating.
Get a private nurse on retainer so the CCU doesn’t turn into a press pool.
Audit the alarm logs because if one local gossip blogger steps foot on this property to “check in,” I want to know which cousin of a cousin let them through the gate.
And work… fine, I’ll thread that needle too.
Eric can run point on everything that doesn’t require my signature.
If he complains, I’ll buy him a boat and name it Shut the Fuck Up.
I take my phone back out, power it on, and start typing: Ariane…
What? What would I say that wouldn’t break something we can’t fix? Are you okay? Stupid and trite. I’m not sorry? True, and pointless.
I lock the screen and let the message rot in drafts.
Across the hall I hear a muted click, the sound of a lamp chain or a clasp or a ring against wood, and the tether tightens again until I can feel it in my teeth. I breathe through it, remembering the way she looked when she said we can’t, like she was trying to convince both of us and failing.
“You already did,” I tell the empty room, and the dark nods like it’s been waiting for me to catch up.
I close the balcony door, kill the lights, and lie down on top of the covers because sleep is a joke and I’m not laughing. The house creaks once, twice, settling around me like a beast. I leave my eyes open because I’ve learned not to miss the moment a night decides to turn.
When it does, I’ll be awake. And when morning comes, I’ll still be here.