Chapter 5 - THE VIEW FROM TABLE 1
Six months later, the spring air in Vermont was warm, fragrant, and entirely free of industrial dumpsters.
I stood on the slate patio of the Maplewood Inn, looking out over a sprawling green lawn dotted with apple blossoms and white wooden chairs. The string lights overhead glowed with a soft, warm amber light that made everyone look like they belonged in a painting.
Inside the grand ballroom, guests were clinking crystal champagne flutes, laughing naturally, and enjoying a menu that didn't include a single forged invoice.
My phone buzzed in my blazer pocket. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
An alert from my banking app: Direct deposit processed. Settlement installment #3 received.
I smiled, tucked the phone away, and looked down at my wrist.
Resting against my skin was Grandma’s diamond bracelet. The baguettes caught the evening sunlight, throwing tiny, brilliant prisms of light across my sleeve. Natalie had tried to dispute the asset transfer in family court, but her own lawyer had advised her that continuing the legal battle would result in immediate criminal prosecution for wire fraud. The bracelet was legally mine now—not given as a favor, and not kept as a trophy, but reclaimed as a rightful inheritance.
“Hey, Ellie.”
I turned around. My friend Sarah, a brilliant structural engineer from my firm who had acted as my co-conspirator and date for the evening, walked up holding two glasses of sparkling cider.
“How are you holding up?” Sarah asked, handing me a glass. “You look entirely too calm for someone attending a formal event where your father isn't speaking to you.”
“My father isn't speaking to me because he’s currently living in a two-bedroom rental apartment in Hartford and working as a greeter at a home improvement store,” I noted calmly, taking a sip of the cider. “Silence is the best gift he’s ever given me.”
Sarah laughed, clinking her glass against mine. “And the seating chart?”
I looked down at the small calligraphy card resting on the podium near the entrance.
ELEANOR MARSH — TABLE 1
May you like
I smiled, looking out over the impeccably set tables where people who actually valued me were laughing, talking, and celebrating real life.
“Table 1,” I said softly, the cool evening breeze catching my hair. “And this time, there are no trash cans in sight.”
