Page 17 of Never After Us
They lock me into following her instructions.Why?Because of the trust set aside under my mother’s name—money that only releases if I “prioritize my own healing.”Whatever the fuck that means.
Mom needs that support.So do my aunts.I can’t walk away from that.They’re receiving something at the end of this year too, and somehow Lina decided I should be the one responsible for delivering their future.It feels so unfair, it settles under my skin like static.
And then there’s Mila.Aunty Lina left her a college fund.It’s money I don’t want.Mila already has the small investment account from Sam’s life insurance—enough to send her to college someday if that’s what she wants.Enough that I shouldn’t have to twist my life around a will written by someone who didn’t bother to call once in so many years.
There are donations I have to make in her honor, each one requiring so many steps it feels like she drafted a mini-epic for every cause.The manila folder Hanley handed read more like an encyclopedia of hoops and consequences.
She didn’t even leave one final message saying something like:
Dear Mara,
I resent you, so now you have to earn your keep in my gilded cage.Babysit my neighbor’s plant—and him.Keep cookies stocked for everyone.Smile like you’re being bribed (because you are).
Love,
Lina
I mean—really?As if I’m going to knock on every door and inspect houseplants.
Her testament reads like a caretaker’s to-do list.A cheerful caretaker, at that.According to Mr.Hanley, Aunt Lina owned more than half the units in this building, including this penthouse and the land beneath it.Which means ...well, I don’t know what that means really but I don’t want this assignment.
It seems like a lifetime sentence, even though Mr.Hanley promised I’d be done after a year.I want to believe him, but life is never this simple.There’s always something hiding in microscopic print where money is involved.
I learned that from my former in-laws—the ones who offered “help” after Sam died.Help that came with a horrifying caveat: they wanted Mila during the weekdays so they could “support her development.”My answer was simple.I sold everything because a part of me feared they’d find a way to argue I wasn’t fit to raise my own daughter.
I hate all of this.
The legal traps.The rules disguised as generosity.The way money transforms into a leash.I might even hate this penthouse with its glossy floors and the expectations tucked into every corner.I hate the decisions I now have to make for Mom, for my aunts, for Mila.Because my daughter seems too excited about staying in one place for a year.She might even get to go to a school—wouldn’t that be different?
I hate that I feel ungrateful for wishing I had freedom instead of boundaries.
Air.I need air.
I unlatch the sliding door, and cold night sweeps in, brushing my face with something that almost feels like relief.I step outside.
The sky has cleared since the earlier drizzle.February stretches above me, dark and wide, the city glowing beneath it.Seattle’s lights smudge out most of the stars, but a faint scattering survives.Towers rise in all directions, windows lit and unlit—a mosaic of lives I’ll never know.
I breathe in, slow and deep, until the tight swirl inside me eases enough for my thoughts to stop tumbling.
Thankfully, Mila is finally asleep, curled up in what she called the perfect room—which is not the massive primary bedroom with the dramatic four-poster bed she refused to go near.I didn’t press it.Aunt Lina’s room feels ...bad energy vibes-charged, almost like she might walk back in at any moment.Neither of us belongs there.
I lean my elbows on the railing, scanning the balcony’s edge.There’s a dividing wall to my left.Low enough to tempt curiosity, high enough to warn me away.The other side belongs to the neighbor.The recluse.Alec, whatever his last name was.The man Hanley mentioned — like black ice or territorial cats— should be made aware of as a hazard.
Also, the guy Aunt Lina called a “good man who needs guidance,” which, honestly, makes me think he should invest in a compass or those new GPS units they sell at Circuit City, along with DVDs.I’m not an emotional Magellan.
On the inside, the penthouses face different directions, two separate lives arranged so they’ll never overlap.But out here, the balconies sit along a single narrow ledge, close enough that if I stretched far enough, my fingertips might graze the divider.I try to picture what kind of man chooses to live this high above everything—so distant from the world it almost feels intentional.Maybe that’s why I’ve built theories about him, patched together from what my aunt’s lawyer told me.
Does it matter?
Can I just ignore him for the next few months, a year tops?As soon as I’m gone, I’ll try to give a shit ...or two.
A soft strum cuts through the silence.
One note.And somehow it slips through me before I can brace myself.
I turn my head.
Someone is sitting on the balcony beside mine.
