My father was wearing my bathrobe when he ordered me to leave my room.
He stood in the middle of the master suite with the relaxed confidence of a man who believed that if he occupied something long enough, it became his. My silk dressing gown hung loosely over his robust figure, open at the chest. In one hand he held my crystal whiskey glass, and with the other he ran his fingers over my duvet as if inspecting a hotel room.
My mother didn't even bother to look up.
She sat on the velvet bench at the foot of my bed, a cracked heel resting on her knee, as she scooped my eight-hundred-dollar face cream out of the jar with two fingers, rubbing it on her skin with the same nonchalance as if it were a cheap drugstore lotion.
"Don't just stand there, Vanessa," he said. "Your brother is overwhelmed. You can sleep with the rest of the staff."
I stood in the doorway, watching the scene unfold as if a hidden camera might suddenly appear and reveal the whole thing to be a hoax. The pale curtains, the chrome bathroom fixtures, the hum of the generators beneath the floor—all of it was mine. Yet the people inside the room seemed like ghosts dragged from a life I'd been trying to escape for three years.
I couldn't speak. My throat was too closed, and anything I said would have been useless.
So I turned around, walked past my father without touching him, and went out onto the aft deck.
The Miami heat hit me immediately: a thick air, heavy with salt, diesel, and a faint smell of sunscreen. I gripped the railing and forced myself to breathe.
Leo stood near the gangway, nervously twisting the visor of his cap. He was nineteen, new to working full-time on a yacht, and still had that earnest look of someone desperately trying to do everything right.
“Miss Vanessa,” he said as soon as he saw me. His shoulders slumped helplessly. “I’m so sorry. They said it was supposed to be a surprise visit for our anniversary. They knew your name, your company, that you left this morning. Your father told me that if I called you, he’d make sure you fired me.”
I watched him for a moment. He was only weeks away from getting a permanent contract, and my father had clearly figured out how to intimidate him.
"You handled it like any nineteen-year-old would," I said. "Go take a break."
—I should have called anyway.
"He gave you a reason not to," I said. "That's what he does. Go."
Leo left, with an expression of relief and sadness at the same time.
I stood on the railing, gazing out at the marina. The light of the setting sun cast the water a dull silver. A couple strolled hand in hand along the pier in the distance. Somewhere in the canal, a jet ski whizzed past, leaving a white wake in its wake.
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