Zachary was meant to come with me, but an acquisition in Tokyo had run long and stranded him on the wrong side of the ocean.

I’m rerouting the jet now, he texted while I fastened my earrings. I am not letting you face those vultures by yourself.

I can handle them, I wrote back. Just be here for the reception.

Hold your head high, my love.

I’m coming.

I checked my reflection in the glass.

I looked, I thought, calm and untouchable.

But under the platinum silk, in the locked room where I kept everything, a small girl who had spent thirty years being told she was not enough tightened her grip, because some part of me knew exactly what kind of afternoon I was driving toward.