I wake to the sound of waves knocking against rock, a slow, insistent thud beneath the bedroom windows. For a moment I forget where I am. The ceiling is higher than mine at home, the light softer, filtered through sheer linen instead of cheap blinds. The air holds a faint mix of salt and woodsmoke, threaded with something sharper that I only place when I see the hospital complex on the distant hill in my mind’s eye—disinfectant and coffee drifting up from Harbor Glen Memorial.
Daniel is already half dressed, buttoning a pale blue shirt in front of the mirror. The easy T-shirts he wears in our apartment are gone; this one fits his shoulders a little too perfectly, the collar meant for a tie he hasn’t put on.
“You’re up,” he says, catching my eyes in the glass. His voice is light, practiced. “Mom likes breakfast on time. She calls it ‘starting the day together.’”
I push the covers back and feel the chill slice through the warm nest of the bed. “What does ‘on time’ mean here?”
“Now.” He smiles, but it lands crooked. “You’re fine. Just—”
His gaze flicks to the chair where I draped my jeans last night. Faded, ripped at one knee.
I follow his look and my stomach tightens. “Too casual?”
“Not for me.” He crosses the room and kisses my forehead, lingering longer than he needs to. “For her… I’d go with the dress. The green one. She’ll love that color on you.”
Translation: This house has a dress code and jeans break it.
I nod, swallow, and reach for the dress. The fabric feels thinner than usual under my fingers, my skin prickling where the cold air hits it. Daniel fastens the delicate necklace he bought me after our courthouse wedding—a tiny gold disk that always sits a little off-center on my collarbone—and I let him straighten it, the gesture both tender and faintly managerial.
“You okay?” he asks.
The image of the third-floor door flashes up, the neat white letters spelling PRIVATE. “Sure,” I say. “Just don’t want to use the wrong fork and get sent back down the peninsula.”
He laughs, but his shoulders loosen with relief in a way that has nothing to do with my joke. “You’ll be great. Just be you.”
At the bedroom door, he pauses. “Maybe… be the version of you that doesn’t swear when she knocks a glass over.”
“So not me at all,” I say, and he grins, but I catch the message. No mess. No noise.
The breakfast room faces the water, all wide windows and pale wood floors. Outside, the harbor curves around the narrow peninsula, a ring of cliffside mansions perched above the cold blue. Inside, the table gleams under white linen and a bowl of oranges studded with cloves, the spicy scent mingling with coffee and butter. A Mercer crest napkin ring—a silver wave pattern—wraps each folded square of linen, tiny flags of ownership at every place setting.
Evelyn sits at the head of the table, reading a folded newspaper. A smaller tablet rests beside her plate, donor wall photos visible on the lock screen; names climb glass panels in neat rows. She looks up when we enter, taking me in from head to toe with one fast, thorough sweep. No visible reaction, which I decide to count as a win.
“Good morning, darling,” she says to Daniel, rising just enough for him to kiss her cheek. Her lipstick doesn’t smudge. “Hannah. I trust you slept well.”
“The bed tried to adopt me,” I say, then instantly panic that the word is wrong here, in this house built on hospital wings and foundation grants.
Her smile twitches at the corner but holds. “I’m glad you were comfortable. Harbor Glen air is good for sleep. All that salt.” She taps the window with one manicured nail. “And the quiet. The back roads cut most of the traffic, so we’re spared the noise from town.”
A woman in a navy uniform glides in with a carafe of coffee. A small Mercer crest is embroidered just above her wrist, the silver threading catching the light. She pours for Evelyn first, then Daniel, then me, her eyes fixed on the cups. When she finishes, she steps back, hands clasped behind her back.
“Thank you, Claire,” Evelyn says. “Hannah takes hers with cream. No sugar.”
The fact that she knows this lands in my chest like a stone dropped in deep water. My hands fold in my lap to hide the way my fingers tighten.
“We like to keep breakfast simple,” Evelyn continues, nodding to the covered dishes. “Fruit, eggs, bread from the bakery in town. No phones at the table. No television. It keeps things civilized.”
The rules arrive folded into compliments, tied with twine.
“Of course,” I say. “We didn’t have a TV in the kitchen growing up either.”
“Mm.” She lifts her fork with an economy of movement that says she has practiced this, this stage, for years. “Daniel used to sneak his little games under the table. Lydia would tattle every time.” A flicker of something moves over her face and vanishes. “Children need structure.”
Daniel looks down, lashes shadowing his cheeks. When he looks up again, the familiar softness has been replaced by something smoother. “Hannah works with kids,” he says. His tone shifts into the polished cadence I hear at his fundraisers. “Her agency partners with a shelter in Newark.”
“Social work.” Evelyn’s eyes swing back to me. “Daniel said you’re very passionate. That’s admirable. The Mercer Foundation does quite a lot in that arena, of course, though on a different scale. Perhaps next year you’ll ride with us for Light the Harbor.”
I picture the harbor below, packed with boats draped in lights, the town treating it like both holiday and attendance check. “That’s the boat parade?” I ask.
“Annual.” She sprinkles salt on her eggs with dainty precision. “Every yacht in the marina trying to outshine the others. People in town watch from the docks, wagering privately on which donors make the A-list. It’s very silly but very effective.”
Even the spectacle is a spreadsheet.
I reach for my napkin and unfold it. The linen is heavier than anything I own, edged in embroidery. I start to settle it in my lap when Evelyn gently clears her throat.
“Diagonal fold,” she says, voice calm but cool. “It keeps the crumbs from your dress. Here.”
She demonstrates, folding hers so the long edge faces away from her. I copy the motion, aware of Claire watching from the doorway and carefully avoiding eye contact. My cheeks heat with the stupid shame of not knowing how to place a napkin.
“You’ll pick it up in no time,” Evelyn says. “The last girl Daniel brought home insisted on eating breakfast in leggings. The staff didn’t know where to look.”
The last girl. Daniel shifts in his chair.
“Mom,” he says quietly.
“What?” She presses a smile onto her face. “Hannah understands. This house has its own… rhythm. People either settle into it or they don’t. No judgment.” Her eyes rest on me longer than the smile. “We like to avoid unnecessary drama.”
My fork feels heavier in my hand. I cut into the eggs without tasting them, focus on the crust of toast flaking under my fingers, the sting of citrus when I squeeze an orange wedge over my plate. Every movement of hers becomes a silent instruction: don’t slouch, don’t speak with your hands, don’t interrupt.
After breakfast, Daniel offers to help the staff clear, but Evelyn waves him away.
“You have calls,” she says. “The foundation board isn’t taking Christmas week off, no matter how many cookies I send them. I’ll show Hannah around. She should know which doors lead where.”
The thought of being alone with her makes my pulse jump, but I paste on a smile. “I’d love a tour.”
She leads me into the main hall, heels barely making a sound on the polished cherry floor. The air smells of pine from the garlands looping the banister and faint furniture polish. Family portraits line the walls, Mercers in various centuries staring down with the same high cheekbones and squared shoulders, their frames heavy as small altars.
“We built the new wing after the hospital expansion,” she says, nodding toward a corridor that angles toward the hill. “Entertaining rooms to the left, family rooms to the right. Staff use the back staircases. We ask guests not to wander there; it confuses the household.”
We pass a side doorway where a young man in uniform starts toward us, then quickly veers down a lower hallway lined with plain doors. His gaze flickers once to Evelyn, then drops to the floor. There is a path he will not cross in front of her.
“People in Harbor Glen work hard,” she murmurs. “We take care of them; they take care of us. It’s a balance.”
A balance where the donor wall in her lock screen flashes in my mind, names ranked like a social periodic table.
She pauses before a set of glass doors and pushes them open. Winter air pours in, cold and bright. We step onto a stone terrace overlooking the cliffs. Below, the water churns around black rocks, foaming at the base of the peninsula. To our left, the town curls around the harbor, a cluster of roofs and plumes of woodsmoke. Higher up, the hospital’s glass gleams under the weak sun.
“The Light the Harbor route starts there,” she says, pointing with her chin toward the marina. “By the time the boats reach this side, it’s full dark. The whole shoreline glows. A bit like being on stage, really.”
I grip the icy terrace railing, my fingertips going numb. “Sounds beautiful.”
“It is.” Her gaze shifts to a point near the cliff edge where a small tree stands alone, branches bare, tiny white lights twined through them even without leaves. A stone bench curves around its base.
I follow her line of sight. “Is that…?”
“Lydia’s tree,” she says. Her voice lowers, the first real softness I’ve heard. “We planted it after the accident. One living thing where the worst day ended.”
I take a step toward the edge, then stop, aware of the drop and the wind snatching at my dress. “Do you come out there a lot?” I ask. “To talk to her?”
The words leave my mouth before I can weigh them. The idea of her sitting under the branches, speaking into salt air, rises in my mind and feels raw and human and survivable.
Evelyn’s face shutters. The softness vanishes, replaced by a smooth, chill surface.
“We prefer to remember her life,” she says. The emphasis on we lands like a gavel. “Not perform grief on a schedule.”
My throat tightens. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sure you didn’t.” She adjusts the cuff of her sweater with delicate precision, her fingers no longer shaking. “People from outside our family often fixate on the morbid details. The water, the timing, the place. It isn’t healthy.”
Outside our family. The border thickens between us, invisible but hard.
“I’m sorry,” I say, fingers curling into my palms inside my sleeves. The cold bites deeper where my nails press skin. “I was trying to understand.”
“Of course.” She turns away from the tree, back toward the house. Conversation dismissed. “There’s nothing to understand. An accident took my daughter. The hospital saves other children; the foundation funds more. Life, loss, balance.” She glances back once at the tree. “You’ll see, once you’re more familiar with our work.”
The idea that good deeds can be stacked like sandbags against a single drowned girl lodges in my chest and refuses to move.
Inside again, we walk a different corridor, this one narrower, lined with framed photos instead of oil paintings. Lydia in a sailing camp T-shirt, Lydia on a dock with Daniel, Lydia in a hospital wing cutting a ribbon beside a much younger Evelyn. The Mercer crest appears everywhere—on plaques, embroidered on jackets, etched into a glass door at the end of the hall. Waves repeating, reshaping, eroding.
The door to the third floor waits near the back stair, the white PRIVATE sign a small, clean warning. We approach but do not draw level with it; Evelyn stops at a console table holding a vase of white lilies. The flowers’ sweet, heady scent thickens the air.
“The family bedrooms are upstairs,” she says. “Robert and I on one side, the children on the other. We keep that level for us. Staff go up only when necessary.” Her gaze hovers near the door but never lands on the word.
My eyes pull toward it anyway. “Is that where Lydia’s room is?”
Silence swells, dense as those lilies.
Evelyn smiles. It doesn’t touch her eyes. “We keep her things just so. It’s important to preserve certain memories, don’t you think?” She picks an invisible speck of dust from the table. “It’s not a space for guests.”
“Of course,” I say, though my tongue feels thick. “I wasn’t asking to… intrude. I just wondered how you—”
“Not everyone understands boundaries,” she says, cutting gently across my sentence. “The girls before you, for instance, treated this house like an open museum. Sneaking into offices, rifling drawers, taking pictures where they weren’t allowed.” Her voice remains light, but each word lands with the precision of a scalpel. “They didn’t last.”
Girls before you. The phrase hangs in the air between the lilies and the closed door.
“I get it,” I say quietly. “I wouldn’t want strangers in my room either.”
Her gaze softens by a millimeter. “You’re not a stranger,” she says. “You’re family now. That comes with privileges.” Another beat. “And responsibilities.”
The tour continues: the library with its rows of medical texts and legal volumes, the small sitting room overlooking the harbor where she hosts board members, a trophy room of glass cases displaying awards from the hospital and foundation. In one, a plaque reads MERCER FAMILY: HEALING GENERATIONS. My reflection wavers over the engraved letters, a ghost layered on their legacy.
By the time she deposits me back at the main staircase, my cheeks ache from holding my face in pleasant shapes. She touches my arm, a light, guiding pressure.
“You’re doing very well,” she says. “It’s a great deal to take in. If you’re ever unsure about what’s appropriate, you may ask me directly. It’s better than guessing.”
I nod, the compliment landing like another rule. You may ask me. I decide what counts as appropriate.
When I finally find Daniel, he’s in the smaller den that passes for casual in this house, laptop open, phone on speaker beside him. His tie lies discarded on the back of a chair, but his voice still carries that careful, polished cadence as he wraps up a call.
“Thanks, Margaret,” he says. “We’ll circle back after the holidays.” He taps the screen to end the call and looks up. The polished version of him recedes in a visible exhale. “How’d it go? You survived the grand tour.”
I drop onto the couch, the leather cold through my dress. “Your mother knows how I take my coffee.”
“Of course she does.” He smiles, then catches my face and frowns. “What happened?”
I pick at a loose thread on a throw pillow, winding it around my finger until the tip reddens. “We went out to the terrace. She showed me Lydia’s tree.” I stop, replaying the shift in Evelyn’s expression, the way the air itself thinned. “I asked if she goes there to talk to her.”
Daniel’s shoulders tense. “You said that? To her face?”
“I was trying to connect.” Heat creeps up my neck again, the humiliation fresh. “It felt… human. Normal. People talk to graves. Trees. Whatever they have.”
He rakes a hand through his hair, messing the neat part she probably made when he was five. “Hannah, you can’t… Mom doesn’t do that kind of grief. She files things. She doesn’t sit under trees and talk to ghosts.”
“I figured that out.”
He scoots closer, knee bumping mine. “She has her version of Lydia’s story, okay? The official one. She lets herself say only parts of it. If you push for more, she shuts down. And when she shuts down, she can get…” He searches for a word and gives up, snapping his fingers once. “Cold. It makes everything harder.”
“You mean harder for you.”
His jaw tightens. “For everyone.” He drops his gaze to our hands. “I just don’t want you on her bad side. She’s had other women in this house who… challenged her. It never ends well.”
“She mentioned the ‘girls before me,’” I say. The thread on the pillow bites deeper into my skin. “Are we talking two? Three? A line out the door?”
He winces. “A few. Nothing serious. Mom reads into things. She tests people. It’s her way of protecting the family.”
Protecting. The word tastes bitter.
“Do you want me to pass her tests?” I ask. “Or do you want me to be myself?”
He looks up, eyes wide, caught between loyalties. “I want you both here,” he says. “Is that really so terrible?”
The honest panic in his voice knots my chest. I lean back, looking past him to the doorway. Down the hall, a large family portrait hangs where the light from the windows catches it just right. I can only see the edge from here: a woman’s painted hand resting on the back of a chair, a child’s sleeve peeking in, the curve of Daniel’s younger jaw.
I picture myself stepping into that frame and feel my spine stiffen. How many women stood in this room before me, trying to fit their bodies into a story that wasn’t written for them?
“I’ll be careful,” I say finally. “I won’t ask your mother about tides or timing or how long it took the rescue boat to get there.” My voice comes out thinner than I intend. “But I’m not made for museum glass, Daniel.”
He reaches for my hand, thumb rubbing over the red groove the thread left on my finger. “Just for this week,” he murmurs. “Keep the peace. Please.”
I let him hold my hand. I let the rules wrap tighter around me: the folded napkin, the closed doors, the tree I’m not allowed to grieve at, the sister whose name belongs only to their version of events. My tongue presses against the questions I could ask right now about that portrait in the hall, about the extra sleeve at its edge, about the girls who didn’t last.
I swallow them down.
For now.