Abigail placed the cup on the saucer she was holding. Susan reacted to the melodious clink of porcelain as a butler would to a bell: she picked up a pot-bellied teapot and gave Abigail a questioning look.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Abigail wanted to ask in return. Instead, she forced a smile and nodded. Susan filled her cup with tea, set the pot on the table, and returned to her armchair across from her. Her face had remained impassive since Charlie’s funeral — a dignified stoicism she maintained for appearances. Abigail took that stoicism personally: Susan had decided to avoid any quarrel with her, at least for today, and was forced to tolerate her presence.

  Abigail quietly accepted this game. She was still angry with Susan for refusing to pay Charlie’s hospital bills, and her feigned grief over the deceased infuriated Abigail even more. But she had no desire to turn Charlie’s funeral into a circus. So she exchanged the usual condolences with Susan and was even allowed to sit next to her — on the other side of Sarah — as if Susan recognized Abigail as a family member. Sarah shot her mother a furious look, but Susan remained unmoved.

  “Behave, girls,” she hissed through her teeth, as if establishing parity between her daughter and Abigail.

  However, Susan’s sudden kindness carried a subtle mockery. Strangers came up, offered customary words for Susan, shook Sarah’s hand, and regarded Abigail with polite concern and barely concealed curiosity, as if they wanted to ask, “Who is she?” but held back.

  It was a relief to slip away after the funeral and no longer see Susan’s feigned grief or Sarah’s snake-like stare.

  Abigail did not expect Susan to maintain the same game of stoic politeness the next day, when Charlie’s will was read. There were no spectators here — no one for whom it would be worth performing grief and propriety. Frankly, Abigail hadn’t expected to be let into the house without a scene.

  She was right about Sarah. As soon as Abigail appeared in the doorway, Sarah’s eyes narrowed, and she rushed toward her as if ready to shove her back outside. But Susan stopped her daughter with a sharp call. Strangely, Sarah obeyed at once, retreating into the living room and dropping onto the sofa with the offended look of a bulldog whose rightful prey had just been snatched from its jaws.

  Keeping up her stoic politeness toward Abigail, Susan suggested having tea together while waiting for the notary, who was delayed at the office.

  Was Susan truly grieving Charlie’s death? It could be an explanation for her unexpected tolerance.

  But Abigail couldn’t believe it. There was no room for peace between them — only for a short ceasefire. Animals gathering at a watering hole in a drought; a brief peace never cancels the laws of the jungle.

  Sarah’s dark, sullen stare left no doubt.

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  “You’re in no hurry?” Sarah broke the tense silence.

  Abigail shook her head.

  “I mean, you are a doctor. Such a responsible job…” There wasn’t a trace of sympathy in Sarah’s voice — only venom.

  Abigail suddenly wondered whether Sarah somehow knew she had been fired from the hospital. She dismissed the thought at once. How could Sarah possibly know?

  “A free day,” Abigail answered, trying to sound indifferent. “I can wait.”

  “For what?” Sarah’s voice sounded scornful.

  Abigail spun sharply toward her. The porcelain clattered plaintively in her hands.

  “Sarah—” Susan said warningly.

  Sarah shrugged.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I just wonder what exactly Abigail is hoping for. Did Charlie promise you something, my black-sheep sister?”

  “Sarah!” Susan snapped.

  Sarah raised her hands, pretending to surrender. Susan gave Abigail the same sharp warning look she had used on her daughter.

  Abigail looked away and squeezed the porcelain handle of the cup so hard she could have snapped it off. If the notary delayed any longer and this mad tea party dragged on, she would leave this house feeling like the Mad Hatter himself.

  In some ways, Sarah was right. Charlie had promised Abigail something — but it wasn’t what Sarah or Susan might have imagined. Abigail didn’t expect to inherit any property or money. Charlie had already done more for her than anyone else. He had paid for her university education. And most importantly, he had been there for her all her life, stepping in for the father she never knew.

  But he had never answered the questions that mattered most. The questions.

  Why was Mum mad at Charlie? And at Abigail, too?

  How could she make her Mum love her again?

  Why should she stay with this impossible, impossible woman, instead of staying with Charlie — the one who truly loved her?

  And why did he?

  “One day you’ll know everything,” he used to tell her whenever she asked her questions. “One day. I promise.”

  He always kept the promises he made to her. So she had stopped asking. She just waited for that day to come.

  That day was today.

  That was why she was sitting in the living room with Susan and Sarah, pretending to take part in a family tea party: she was waiting for the answer Charlie had promised her. Now he could no longer avoid the issue.

  She needed it badly right now, this answer. Because she had never managed to tell her mother everything — that she hadn’t gone to a public college but had graduated from a university; that Charlie had paid for her tuition; that she had finished her internship at a prestigious city hospital.

  All she had ever dared to confess was that she’d been fired.

  And that Charlie was gone.

  Her mother’s reaction should have been predictable, and yet it still knocked Abigail off balance. Just a moment ago, her mother had frowned at the news that her daughter was now unemployed — and then her expression snapped into a triumphant smile.

  “Every dog has its day, huh?” her mother said. “And he wasn’t even an old man yet. Pretty much in his prime. Bet Susan’s thrilled to bits now.”

  But the thrilled one was her mother herself. She even forgot that Abigail had been fired, and it was unclear how the bills would be paid now.

  She had never managed to confess everything to her mother. She could never find the words, or the strength, or even the desire. Watching her mother rejoice at Charlie’s death, Abigail felt like a little girl standing in the middle of a ruined city.

  Abigail carefully placed the cup on the saucer. This set had also belonged to Charlie. Like many other things in his house, it might have been considered long out of fashion. But Charlie had always said otherwise — it was a timeless piece.

  Like an echo of the gentle ringing of antique porcelain, the doorbell’s melodious chime sounded.

  The notary had arrived.