My daughter was standing at the bottom of the stairs when I came home, holding the yellow ribbon her mother used to wear.

At 4:15 PM, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s cruiser pulled up to the curb of our house on Cherokee Road.

Deputy Miller, a tall, broad-shouldered man who had gone to high school with June’s youngest brother, stepped out into the damp afternoon. He didn't wear a hat; his short gray hair was misted with the light drizzle that had returned to the valley.

“James,” Miller said, nodding to me as I stood on the front porch. “She’s on her way. She called dispatch twice to complain about the time limit. I told her sixty minutes is sixty minutes, and she doesn't get an extra second for every dress she can’t decide on.”

“Thank you, Frank,” I said.

A moment later, Brooke’s Lexus turned into the drive.

She didn't get out immediately. She sat behind the tinted glass for three full minutes, her engine idling, the headlights cutting through the gray dusk. When she finally opened the door, she wasn't wearing the cashmere. She was wearing a heavy trench coat, dark sunglasses despite the gloom, and her hair was pulled back into an uncharacteristically severe bun.

She didn't look at me. She looked at Deputy Miller.

“I assume I have access to the master suite and the guest storage?” she said, her voice brittle, clipped like ice hitting stone.

“Master bedroom and your personal closet only, ma'am,” Miller said, stepping between her and the front steps. “No furniture, no art, no kitchen appliances. Personal effects, clothing, and toiletries. Mr. Whitaker has already staged your luggage in the foyer.”

Brooke’s jaw tightened. She walked past me without a word, her perfume—that expensive, smoky jasmine she wore when she wanted to dominate a room—leaving a sharp, artificial wake in the damp air.

I stayed on the porch with Miller.

Inside, the sounds were brief, sharp, and frantic. The zip of nylon luggage. The rattle of plastic hangers being stripped of silk dresses. The thud of leather boot heels against the oak floorboards.

At 4:48 PM, she came down the stairs carrying three garment bags and two large leather duffels.

She set them on the hall rug and looked at me through the open screen door.

“You think this is over,” she said. Her sunglasses were in her hand now, her eyes small, tight, and surrounded by dark, yellowing shadows that no foundation could hide. “You think you’re going to stay in this pretty house with your mother-in-law and your strange, damaged little girl, and everyone is going to feel sorry for you.”

“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, Brooke,” I said from the threshold.

“They will,” she hissed, her voice dropping into a low, vicious cadence that made Deputy Miller take half a step closer to the door. “Because you’re an anchor, James. You’re dragging that child down to the bottom of the river with Natalie. You couldn't save your wife, so now you’re going to turn your daughter into a shrine so you don't have to admit that you’re just an ordinary, lonely man who fixes boilers for a living.”

I didn't answer. I looked past her shoulder at the wall where our wedding photograph had hung until this morning. The nail hole was still there, a tiny, pale puncture in the gray paint she had chosen to cover Natalie’s pale yellow.

“Your sister called,” I said.

Brooke froze.

“Chloe called my phone twenty minutes ago,” I said. “She was crying. She said the investigators from the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office had already contacted her about the forged text messages and the IP address from her apartment in Bowling Green. She wanted to know if I was really going to press charges against family.”

Brooke’s face went slack. The last reserve of her venomous confidence drained out through her boots, leaving only a hollow, terrified shell.

“What did you tell her?” Brooke whispered.

“I told her she wasn't family,” I said. “And that she should get herself a very good lawyer.”

Brooke reached for the handles of her garment bags. Her fingers were shaking so violently that she dropped the first one, the dark fabric sprawling across the floorboards she had spent six months having bleached and resealed.

Deputy Miller reached down, picked up the bag with one large, gloved hand, and carried it out to her car.

“Time’s up, Mrs. Whitaker,” Miller said from the driveway.

She didn't look back. She walked down the steps, her head down, her coat pulled tight around her throat against the autumn mist. She threw her bags into the rear of the Lexus, slammed the tailgate with a metallic thud that echoed between the brick houses, and backed down the drive so fast the tires spun on the wet gravel.

The sound of her engine faded toward Lexington Road, swallowed by the sound of the traffic and the steady, quiet drip of water from the eaves.

Miller walked back up the steps, took off his gloves, and slapped them against his thigh.

“You alright, James?”

“I’m alright, Frank,” I said.

“Good,” he said, looking at the house. “Natalie’s yellow roses on the side fence need pruning before the frost. Don't let them go too long.”