“How many close friends?”
She waved one hand. “Maybe twenty-five. Thirty at most.”
Julian coughed.
Brooke shot him a look, then smiled at me. “It’ll be very tasteful. I’ve already spoken to a caterer. The florist is coming Friday. I’ll need the downstairs cleared, obviously, and the garden. We’ll probably move some of your things just temporarily so the flow feels better.”
I took a sip of tea. It was too hot. I drank it anyway.
She continued. “And honestly, Marian, this might be a good chance for everyone to reset after the tension lately.”
“The tension.”
“Yes. I think if we all approach this generously, it could be healing.”
I looked at Julian. He had gone pale around the mouth.
Brooke leaned forward. “Actually, it might be more relaxing for everyone if you made plans that evening. Maybe stayed with a friend. You know, so Mom doesn’t feel like she’s imposing and you don’t feel overwhelmed.”
There it was. Said softly. Wrapped in wellness language. A polite eviction from my own home, requested so Brooke could celebrate the woman whose discomfort had erased me.
Julian set his toast down. “Brooke—”
“What?” she said. “I’m just trying to make it easy.”
I put my mug on the counter and smiled.
“That’s a wonderful idea.”
Both of them stared.
Brooke recovered first. “Really?”
“Really.”
Julian frowned. “Mom?”
“I won’t be here Saturday.”
Brooke’s face relaxed so quickly I almost laughed. She thought she had won. She thought the house had finally tipped all the way into her hands. She was already imagining the long table, the soft lights, the photographs she would post with captions about gratitude and strong women and chosen joy. She saw me as an obstacle politely removing myself from the frame.
“Great,” she said, almost breathless. “That’s great. Thank you for being flexible.”
I looked at her for a long moment. “Flexibility is important.”
She did not hear the door closing inside that sentence.
The week before Cynthia’s party became a theater of small absurdities. Brooke moved through the house with a measuring tape and a phone, directing deliveries, confirming rentals, complaining about the angle of sunlight in the garden as if the sun might adjust itself if spoken to firmly enough. She ordered pale pink napkins, gold-rimmed chargers, and a balloon installation she described as “elevated,” which sounded to me like a balloon installation that had learned to lie about being a balloon installation. Julian carried things when told. He avoided my eyes.
I helped.
That was the part Brooke misunderstood most.
When I took down the curtains in the dining room, she said, “Oh, that does open it up.”
“Yes,” I said, folding them carefully into a box for my condo.
When I rolled up the hallway runner, she said, “Perfect, the entry feels so much cleaner.”
“It does,” I said, sliding the rug into my trunk that afternoon.
When I removed the framed photographs from the living room, she touched my shoulder and said, “I know this is probably emotional.”
“It is,” I said.