Page 49 of Sweet Ruin

I click and the screen goes to the final slide, pure black.

“So there it is,” I conclude. “My husband has been sleeping with my sister for over a year. The night of my father’s funeral, they lied to all of us so they could go do it some more. And then he signed my name to a four-million-dollar loan and handed over my life’s work as collateral for money I have never seen one penny of. How’s that for holiday cheer?”

Silent Night gets to the end.

Nobody moves.

Every single face in that room is turned toward the screen. Every mouth is agape. My mother has both hands flat on the piano, Vivian is frozen half up off the loveseat, and Connor is gawking in disbelief at a document he thought was on fire.

All of them are shocked… except one.

Off to my right, past the kitchen doorway, the pantry door is open a crack. Two inches. No more.

Through that crack, still cloaked in the darkness, somebody is looking at me.

And smiling.

10

DELILAH

Nobody moves.

Fifty people and one fruit fly are as silent as the night, pun fully intended.

Then shit hits the fan.

“SHE’S LYING!” Vivian launches herself up off the loveseat, both arms extended out like she wants to strangle me from across the room. “She’s lying, everybody, she made all that shit up, that’s Photoshop, that’s fake, you can make things like that⁠—”

“Dee.” Connor is halfway to me with his hands up in a spookily accurate mirror image of his secret lover’s. “Dee, babe, listen to me. Listen. That’s not—that’s not what that is⁠—”

“Sit down,” Ed barks.

“Dad—”

“I said sit the fuck down, Connor.”

“Four million dollars?” That’s Uncle Johnny, on his feet by the piano. “Somebody say that number again for me. Four million?”

“It’s a misunderstanding,” Vivian pleads. “It’s a total misunderstanding, and honestly, it’s disgusting that she would⁠—”

“You were in your sister’s bed, Vivian.” I’ve never heard Aunt Virginia sound so cold, but I suddenly remember that she was a correctional officer for a decade in the Nineties and I understand why she’s always scared me a little bit. “We all just watched it with our own eyeballs. Do you think we’re stupid?”

“That wasn’t me!”

“It was your hip!”

“That could be anyone’s hip! Do you know how many people get heart tattoos in this day and age?!”

Somebody knocks a chair over going for the light switch. My mother has both hands on the piano, blaring out a jarring note, and then the sound dies abruptly because she’s lurching across the carpet at me with her face gone splotchy red.

“Turn it off!” she screeches. “Delilah Aileen Dorsey, turn that horrible thing off and put the lights on and explain yourself. Right now! Now! Now!”

The screen behind me is black. There’s nothing to turn off.

“Explain yourself!” she wails again, louder and higher-pitched. “In my house…! On Christmas Eve, the first one since your father…!”

“Leanne,” Aunt Virginia interrupts. “Zip it.”