I looked at myself in the mirror. I still had the faint indentation across my forehead from the surgical cap I had worn the night before. My eyes were red. My hair was pulled into the same uneven knot I had made before sunrise.
“I worked an overnight ER shift,” I said. “I slept three hours, drove four hours, brought food, gifts, and two exhausted children. Mom knew we were coming. You knew we were coming. You both decided your children deserved beds and mine could take the floor.”
“Oh, please. Lily has allergies.”
“To hardwood?”
She went silent.
I surprised myself by laughing once. Not because anything was funny. Because for the first time, the explanations sounded as absurd out loud as they had always been.
“Jacqueline, you’ve always been dramatic when you’re tired.”
There it was.
The old trick.
Make me defend my tone so nobody had to defend the decision.
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Mom is devastated.”
“She texted me that I was embarrassing myself.”
“She’s seventy.”
“Not yet.”
Veronica hesitated.
That small pause reminded me of Bellwood House.
I ended the call.
At 7:58 the next morning, I was awake in the hotel lobby with a paper cup of coffee in my hands. Lucas was still sleeping upstairs. Madelyn sat beside me in pajamas, drawing on the back of the restaurant placemat she had saved. I waited until the digital clock above the front desk changed to 8:00.
Then I called Erica.
She answered on the third ring with the brisk warmth of someone who had already been working for an hour.
“Bellwood House, this is Erica.”
“Hi. My name is Jacqueline Mercer. I’m calling about the Rosalind Mercer seventieth-birthday reservation.”
I heard keys clicking.
“Yes, Ms. Mercer. I have it here. The remaining balance is due Monday.”
“I know. I need to ask you something before we discuss that. Whose name is on the contract?”
“Yours.”
“And whose card has been used for the deposits?”
“Yours.”
I closed my eyes.
