Page 67 of Cashmere Ruin

“Does he have a name?” Kate asks. “Your boo?”

“Yeah, does he?” Diane echoes.

“He does.” I smile politely. “Excuse me.”

I put my cup down without having taken a single sip and rise from the plush sofa. “Where are you going?” Nora asks, scandalized.

“To feed my daughter,” I reply. “Unless you’d rather I do it here?”

My threat seems to have the desired effect. “No need,” she mutters, scrunching up her face like a disgusted bunny. One would think she’d be used to it, having done it three times, but who knows—maybe she had nannies for that, too. “Use the side room.”

I don’t go into the side room. Instead, I veer all the way to the left, looking for the one place that will ease this sense of suffocation in my chest: the balcony.

Looking out onto the view I’m so familiar with, I feel like I can finally breathe. Still, even this little haven doesn’t hold a single pleasant memory.

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

I lean against the railing, May safely snuggled in my arms. “Can you believe this, Nugget?” I murmur. “First, your father doesn’t exist; then, he’s some lowlife. Just pick one already.”

My baby coos in vague agreement. She isn’t a fan of perceiving the world in normal circumstances, so I can only imagine what this is doing to her. Probably putting her off social gatherings forever. I can hardly blame her.

“Sorry.” I press my lips against her wonderful little forehead. “I had to try. I thought…”

Thought what?a part of me mocks.That they’d welcome you back with open arms? That they’d finally treat you as one of their own? That they’d treatyour kidas one of their own?

That they’dchanged?

Yes. As ridiculous as that sounds… yes, I did think that. Just for a second, but I did. I hoped that maybe, now that the girls were grown, they’d have developed some personality traits other than mockery and spite. That maybe they’d finally be able to see me for who I am, not for the person their witch of a mother taught them I was.

An outsider. A failure. A plaything.

And if not them, then at least…

As if on cue, a familiar voice drifts out onto the balcony. “April? Are you still…feeding?”

The sheer level of discomfort in that word is enough to make me laugh, though it doesn’t last long. “I’m decent, if that’s what you’re asking.”

With an uneasy nod, Dominic steps out to join me.

For a beat, there’s silence. He glances from one corner of the balcony to the next, as if looking for something to say and then realizing he has to find that elsewhere. Maybe somewhere closer to the heart than the charcoal grill. “Chilly out here, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to force yourself.”

“Mm.”

It wasn’t like this all the time. Between us, I mean. When I was little, I remember him taking care of me: I remember car rides, packed lunches, checking homework. I even remember games—nothing outrageously funny, but it was funny to me. It wasfun.

Because he was my dad.

But then there were the fights with Mom. The screamed insults that stopped at nothing, not even a daughter’s desperate cries.I remember his anger as he threw every single one of Eleanor’s faults back into her face: the short temper, the drinking, the mistake daughter.

If you couldn’t raise a kid, you should never have had one.

Then Nora came along, and I didn’t even get the screams anymore. Only silence.

Sometimes, that hurt worse.

I remember standing in the hallway one night when I wasn’t feeling well. I wanted to ask my dad if I could sleep in his bed. He used to let me do that when I was smaller. I knew he had a new baby, but maybe…

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