I put my phone face-down on the desk, jaw tightening. I’d learned a long time ago that engaging emotionally with their provocations was like trying to argue with the tide. It just dragged you under.
The phone vibrated again.
This time, it was my father calling.
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly, then answered. “Hi, Dad.”
“Alexandra,” he began, and even through the phone I could hear how tired he sounded. “Please don’t make this difficult.”
There it was. Not, “Is what Victoria said true?” Not, “Are you okay?” Just an exhausted plea for me to fall into the role I’d always been assigned: the reasonable one, the one who swallowed her hurt to keep the peace.
“Victoria is just trying to protect our family’s harmony,” he went on. I could practically hear the phrases he’d absorbed from her, parroting them without even realizing. “Banning you from the beach house—well, maybe she overreacted, but you know how tense things have been. Maybe it’s better if you just… give everyone some space.”
“By banning me from my own family’s beach house?” I asked quietly. “The house Mom’s parents built? The house she put in a trust?”