had been moved between accounts that should have been separate. Vendor payments marked as completed had not cleared. There was a shortfall large enough to sink a business.
She called me afterward from her car, voice thin and shocked. ‘I think the lodge is worse than he’s saying.’
I told her to come stay with me.
She said she wanted to get through the birthday dinner first without causing a war.
I hated that sentence on sight.
Vivienne’s dinner was held at Stone Lantern Lodge halfway up Black Ridge, the same mountain that nearly took Nora’s life a few hours later. It was one of those places built to feel rustic for people who never did anything rustic at all—massive fireplaces, antler chandeliers, polished wood, expensive cocktails with pine sprigs floating on top.
Nora wore a deep green maternity dress and low boots because her ankles were swollen. She looked beautiful and tired. Cole kept a hand at the small of her back the whole evening, the sort of gesture strangers read as tender and family can learn to fear.
Vivienne made a show of fussing over Nora. She pulled out the silver travel mug and said she had brewed peppermint tea herself because red wine on the table was inconsiderate around an expectant mother. Nora told me later the tea tasted faintly metallic. Vivienne smiled until she drank it anyway.
Dinner turned ugly gradually, the way the worst nights do.
A remark about loyalty. A joke about how marriage meant merging futures. Paige asking whether Nora really needed to hang onto a greenhouse when she would have a baby soon and no time for hobbies. Brent laughing too hard at things that were not funny. Cole squeezing Nora’s knee under the table whenever she hesitated.
At one point Nora got up to use the restroom and, on the way back, passed the half-open door of a private side room. She heard Cole’s father say, ‘It has to be done tonight.’
Then Cole answered, low and impatient, ‘She won’t sign unless she’s scared.’
Nora stood there long enough for her pulse to turn the hallway loud. Then she went back to the table and said nothing, because she was alone in a room full of people already committed to pretending.
When dinner ended, snow had started falling hard. Nora wanted to call me. Cole told her her phone battery was nearly dead and said Brent would drive so she could rest in the back seat. Vivienne insisted on taking Nora’s coat because the car had heated seats and bulky layers were bad for the seat belt across a pregnant stomach.
It sounded absurd when Nora repeated it later in the hospital.
It must have sounded almost reasonable in the parking lot, under bright lights, surrounded by smiling liars.
Brent drove. Paige sat in front. Nora and Cole sat in the back. Vivienne rode beside Nora with the travel mug in her lap and kept urging her to drink more tea because she looked pale.
Within twenty minutes, Nora felt dizzy. Her fingers turned slow. Her eyelids grew heavy.
Then Cole took the folder of property papers from his briefcase and laid it across her knees.
He told her to sign before they reached town.
She said no.
Vivienne called her
