Chapter 6 - The Unraveling of the Bride
The scene that followed was one that Boston society would whisper about at dinner parties and country clubs for the next fifty years.
The DCIS agents moved in with quiet, lethal efficiency. Eleanor didn't fight back; her spirit had broken the moment the steel handcuffs clicked around her manicured wrists. She allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, her lilac gown drooping, her pearls askew. She kept her head down, refusing to meet the gaze of any of the women who had shared tea with her only three days earlier.
Clare, however, did not go quietly.
As two female Boston Police officers stepped forward to escort her out for questioning regarding the stolen DOD materials found in her shared apartment, Clare went completely, violently ballistic.
"Get your filthy hands off me!" Clare shrieked, thrashing against the officers' grip. "Do you know how much this dress costs? You're ruining my wedding! Victoria, call them off! You're the general! Tell them to leave me alone! Tell them it was a mistake!"
I stood motionless, watching my sister unravel before my eyes.
"Victoria!" Clare screamed, her face contorting with rage. "You owe me! Daddy loved you more! He always loved you more! He kept your picture on his desk until the day he died! He didn't have a single picture of me! Just you! You in your stupid helmet, you in your stupid tank! I hated you! I hated you every single day of my life!"
The venom in her voice was so raw, so deeply rooted in decades of unaddressed rot, that even the police officers paused for a fraction of a second before continuing to restrain her.
"You wanted to be him," Clare sobbed, her voice cracking as they guided her toward the service entrance—the very entrance she had assigned me to sit beside. "You wanted to be his brave little soldier. And what did it get you? Look at you! You're forty-eight years old, and you have nobody! Nobody loves you! You're going to die alone in some cold barracks, Victoria! You hear me? Alone!"
I took a slow breath.
I remembered my father’s final days in the hospice room at Massachusetts General. I remembered how he had held my hand with his frail, paper-thin fingers, his breathing shallow and labored.
*“Don't let them change you, Tori,”* he had whispered to me, calling me by the childhood name only he used. *“Your mother and Clare... they live in a house made of mirrors. All they can see is themselves. But you... you look out the window. You see the world. You protect it. Never let them pull you into their mirrors, Tori.”*
I looked at Clare now. She was being escorted through the swinging galley doors, her magnificent white dress dragging through the grease and fallen ice of the catering kitchen.
"I am never alone, Clare," I said quietly, though she was already too far gone to hear me. "I have three hundred thousand brothers and sisters who would walk through fire with me. You don't even have the man you were supposed to marry."
The heavy metal doors swung shut, cutting off Clare’s hysterical screams.
The ballroom was left in a state of suspended animation. The air was heavy with the scent of lilies and the sharp, metallic tang of ruined reputations.
Arthur Vance turned toward the orchestra. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills, and walked over to the bandleader.
"Pack up your instruments, son," Arthur said quietly. "Take the night off. You've earned it."
The musicians didn't need to be told twice. Within three minutes, the stage was empty.
Arthur then turned to the crowd of three hundred elite Bostonians who were still standing frozen beside their tables.
"The bar is open until midnight," Arthur announced, his booming voice offering no apologies, no excuses. "Drink whatever you like; the Vance family will cover the tab. But the show is over. Go home."
Slowly, awkwardly, the guests began to move. Some tried to approach Arthur to offer condolences; he waved them away with a sharp flick of his hand. Others glanced at me with expressions of profound reverence and nervous guilt, realizing that the woman they had spent the evening ignoring by the kitchen doors held more power and honor than the entire room combined.
Within twenty minutes, the grand ballroom of the Boston Harbor Hotel was completely empty.
Except for three people.
May you like
Arthur Vance. Ethan Vance. And me.
***
