My stepmother called at 11:47 p.m. on the first night in the beach house I bought with my own money and told me she and my father were moving in the next day, that they were taking the master suite, that her daughter would get the best ocean-view room

Khloe glanced up from her phone and laughed softly, assuming sarcasm, not understanding she had just heard the truest sentence I’d spoken in weeks.

I wore black.

Not because I wanted to look severe, though I didn’t mind if I did. Because black freed me from performance. A long silk column dress, no embellishment, hair swept back, my mother’s pearl earrings, and the manila envelope in a structured bag large enough to look elegant and useful at once. Adrien met me in the hotel lobby before the reception opened. Navy tuxedo, white shirt, calm expression, one hand in his pocket like a man walking into a negotiation rather than a potential public detonation.

“You look like a verdict,” he said.

“Good.”

He nodded toward the envelope. “All there?”

“Yes.”

“Your father?”

“Coming separately with his own counsel.”

Adrien’s brows lifted. “He’s finally learning.”

“My father is slow. Not absent.”

“That’s better than most.”

We went upstairs.