most people had moved toward the reception hall.
Then she crossed the aisle.
Dominic followed at an easy distance, one hand in his pocket, his expression arranged into polite boredom. He had always been skilled at looking innocent in public.
Clara stopped close enough for Mae to smell her perfume.
It was the same fragrance Mae had stopped wearing years ago.
‘Look at you,’ Clara said softly. ‘Back in black, still acting like the injured party.’
Mae folded the program once. Then again.
‘This is Dad’s funeral,’ she said.
‘Yes. And somehow you still made it about yourself by appearing after all this time.’ Clara touched the sapphire at her throat. ‘He would have wanted peace.’
Mae looked at the necklace.
Clara noticed. Of course she noticed. Her mouth curved.
‘Dominic found it in storage last month. Isn’t it funny how some things end up where they belong?’
Something old and hot moved beneath Mae’s ribs. Not heartbreak. Not anymore. Anger, yes, but cleaner than before.
‘Funny is not the word I would use,’ Mae said.
Clara leaned in. ‘You always did have trouble letting go. Seven years, Mae. Still alone. Still wounded. Still waiting for the world to agree that I ruined your life.’
Mae heard a hush behind them. A few relatives had slowed near the chapel doors. Her cousin Ben turned his head. Aunt Ruth pretended to study a hymn board.
Dominic gave Mae a small, regretful smile, the one he used to soften insults delivered by others.
‘Some losses teach us about ourselves,’ he said.
Mae looked at him then.
Really looked.
The man she had once believed was sunlight had become almost transparent to her. She saw the calculation in his posture, the small satisfaction in his eyes, the way he let Clara strike first so his own hands stayed clean.
Seven years earlier, she would have begged him to admit the truth. She would have wanted the room to know she had been loyal, that she had loved him, that she had not imagined what she saw.
Now she wanted only one thing.
To stand upright in front of her father’s coffin and not betray the woman she had become.
So she laughed softly.
Clara blinked.
‘What is funny?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ Mae said. ‘I was just wondering whether my husband has arrived yet.’
The word husband landed between them.
Clara’s smile faltered.
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
‘Husband?’ Clara repeated.
Mae turned toward the back of the chapel.
The side door opened, and Julian stepped in from the rain.
He wore a charcoal suit and carried no umbrella. His hair was damp, and Robert’s old watch circled his wrist. Mae had given it to him that morning after finding it in a box her father’s attorney had sent ahead of the funeral. Julian had not wanted to wear it at first. He said it belonged to family.
Mae had fastened it herself and said, ‘It does.’
Now he saw her across the chapel and came forward without hesitation.
Dominic stopped breathing.
The change was small but unmistakable. His face did not pale dramatically. He did not stagger. He simply lost control of the mask for half a second.
Clara saw it too.
Her hand flew to the sapphire.
Julian stopped beside Mae and placed one
