A weight lifted in my chest, like a boulder finally rolling off it.
Then my father's text came through: "Annie, everything's ready. We'll come for you tomorrow and bring you home ourselves. I've arranged a banquet in New York to announce your return—to tell all of New York that my daughter is home!"
I turned off the phone. One day left. One day, and then he and I would have nothing more to do with each other.
At dawn, before anyone in the house had stirred, I went to the study and emptied the locked cabinet into a cardboard box.
The 999 love letters he'd written by hand. The six-million-dollar diamond necklace he'd given me on my eighteenth birthday. The cheap matching couple's cups we'd bought together. All of it, into the box.
I didn't know when Kay had drifted to the study door, but she stood there throwing barbs at me.
"Oh? What act is Annette Henson putting on now? After everything you've done, has he ever once looked your way? He stopped loving you a long time ago. Haven't you seen the truth yet?"
I didn't stop what I was doing, and I didn't answer her.
She was standing right in front of me, perfectly fine, not a trace of the sprained ankle that supposedly needed bed rest. All of it was nothing more than an excuse for the two of them to stay glued together, inseparable.
She saw how unbothered I looked, and it irritated her. She yanked me up. "What's with the calm act? Annette Henson, I don't care what you're scheming. He's mine. Everything in the Sanchez family is mine too. You were the one who stole it all from me in the first place!"
I looked at her, unruffled. "Miss Henson, I gave all of that up a long time ago. It's yours. I won't fight you for any of it."
I was six when the Hensons took me in. Camille and her husband doted on me as if I were their own, until I was ten and they found Kay. They told everyone we were twins who'd been separated, but some things can't be faked.
She slandered me, she threw tantrums, and the whole household simply assumed it was my doing. They made me kneel in the family chapel, disciplined me under the family rules. For a long time I didn't understand why she did it, when I'd never fought her for anything. Later I understood that her dislike, her hatred, didn't need a reason.
When Duncan cheated on me with her, of course I screamed at him, asking why. He knew everything I'd swallowed over the years, he was the one who'd ached for me most, and yet to every demand of mine he gave the same offhand answer: "I just suddenly felt she was a lot more interesting than you."
Seeing me lost in thought, Kay shoved me hard. "Heh. Annette Henson, if you didn't exist, I'd be his wife. And now I'm pregnant. He'll divorce you soon enough."
"I wish you well."
The moment I said it, she broke into a violent cough, and Duncan burst in as if he'd been waiting for the cue, brows drawn in concern for her, accusation aimed at me. "Annette Henson! What's gotten into you? You know Kay has asthma, and you deliberately come here to clear out your things."
I clenched my skirt, the words caught in my throat. How fitting.
He didn't ask why I was packing. He blamed me for hurting her on purpose. That was how low I stood in his heart.
I picked up the box and said quietly, "I'm sorry. I'll go throw it out right now. It won't be any danger to Miss Henson."
Duncan grabbed me hard, anger settling into his brow.
"Annette Henson, are you trying to defy me?"
I looked at him, weary. "You've misunderstood. It's true I didn't think it through. I'll go throw out this trash right now."
His eyes went to the corner of something poking out of the box, and he sneered.
"And you still claim it wasn't on purpose? Aren't these your most treasured things? There's no way you'd throw them out. Putting on a show for me?"
"They were treasured once. They don't matter now. They just take up space, so I might as well toss them. Nothing more to it."
Stunned, he let go. I didn't turn back, just kept walking toward the door, when Kay suddenly grabbed my arm and cried out, "Sister, are you angry? It's my fault, I'm too weak, getting Duncan to blame you. I'm sorry."
Then, all at once, she shoved hard against my back, her voice at my ear: "Go die!"
I tumbled down the stairs, the box slamming hard against me, and try as I might, I couldn't get up.
Duncan heard the noise and rushed out of the room. The instant he started toward me, the woman's sobs stopped him in his tracks.
She crouched on the floor, voice trembling with fear. "It wasn't me… I didn't push Sister. She fell on her own. Don't blame me, don't blame me!"
He swept her up at once and soothed her softly. "I'm here. No one's going to bully you."
The pain spread through my whole body. It was as if a hand had closed around my throat, and I couldn't cry out for help no matter how I tried. I watched him carry the woman frantically toward the master bedroom, and a tear slid from the corner of my eye. It hurt so much.
In that moment I thought, is this where I'm going to die…
Then, outside the villa, came the roar of a helicopter touching down, and a figure rushed to me and lifted me up. "Annie, don't sleep. Daddy's here. We've come to take you home."
I smiled, finally at peace, and my consciousness gave way at last.
From this day on, worlds apart, never to meet again. Duncan, we're finally over.
