Chapter 13
Celeste did not deny it.
"I'm offering you peace," she replied, still standing in June's doorway.
"You already took that," Brielle said.
June asked Celeste to leave. Celeste raised her chin and told them the lawsuit would drain the trust of money before anyone received a dollar. Then she turned and walked down the stairs, heels striking each step like a warning.
Brielle wanted to run after her and shout. Instead she watched June photograph the proposed statement, date it, and send a copy to Dana. The restraint felt like swallowing broken glass. But it kept the argument from becoming another edited clip.
"She'll say I refused to cooperate," Brielle said.
"Then our record will show exactly what cooperation she requested," June replied.
Dana contacted Celeste's lawyer to direct further communications through counsel. Marcus, who had moved temporarily to his brother's home, was told about the visit. He sounded shaken, then said he wanted to speak to Brielle.
Brielle agreed only if June stayed present.
For the rest of that day, Brielle thought about the printed confession Celeste had carried to June's apartment. Its sentences were carefully polished. They did not call Brielle a liar outright; they described her as distressed and confused, someone whose memories could not be trusted. Brielle understood why the wording frightened her. It sounded compassionate while removing her right to describe what happened.
She opened a notebook and wrote the events of graduation in the order she remembered them. Then she marked the points where she could not be certain of an exact minute. She had not seen Celeste cut the dress. She had seen the hidden stitches. She had heard Naomi explain a sound. She had watched Marcus enter the room already convinced. Putting those distinctions on paper was strangely relieving. She was not required to know everything to know that her own account mattered.
At dinner June asked how she wanted the notebook stored. Brielle said she wanted a copy with Dana and one locked away at home. June agreed, then helped her make a list of things that still belonged only to Brielle: school assignments, drawings, letters from friends, a future she had not yet chosen. Celeste had made every personal decision feel like evidence in a trial. Brielle did not want to carry that habit into adulthood. She closed the notebook and watched a movie with Naomi, letting the ordinary ending arrive without investigating it.
Marcus arrived carrying an old wooden sewing box. Its lid was scratched, and one brass hinge had been repaired with a mismatched screw. He said it had been in the garage, hidden behind paint cans.
"Celeste wanted it donated," he told Brielle. "I couldn't do it."
Inside lay Lillian's measuring tapes, a silver thimble, and a bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. Brielle lifted them gently. Most were ordinary notes from customers thanking Lillian for fitting graduation gowns or repairing treasured dresses. One was addressed to Marcus.
He nodded for her to read it.
Lillian had written during the last year of her illness. She asked Marcus to help the girls make decisions about the studio, not to make every decision for them. She worried especially about Brielle, whose need to be capable sometimes kept her from asking for help.
Brielle read that line twice. Her mother had known her so well that the words seemed to lean out of the paper.
"I thought keeping everything normal was what she wanted," Marcus said.
"You decided normal meant nobody could disagree with you," Brielle answered.
He winced, but he did not challenge it.
"Yes."
"You used to listen when Mom was alive."
"She made me listen. And after she died, I didn't know how to do it alone."
Brielle set down the letter. "You should have learned."
Marcus's eyes filled. "I should have."
They sat in silence. Brielle did not embrace him, and he did not ask her to. The absence of a hug mattered: for once, nobody demanded that a difficult moment end with a comforting picture.
Later, Dana reviewed a separate set of records from the studio's old accountant. A former employee had contacted the office after reading about the property dispute. She reported seeing Celeste request accounting access months before Marcus claimed a sale had been proposed.
The accountant had refused because Celeste was not an authorized trustee.
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The request was documented in an email, complete with its date.
It placed Celeste's interest in controlling the studio well before the supposed financial emergency.
