Chapter Three

Tessa's POV

The day after Wren agreed to stay, she moved into the master bedroom.

I'd drawn every detail of that room myself, from the curtains and the rug down to the height of the floor lamp by the bed. Now the closet was full of her old sweaters, and her charcoal pencils and turpentine were sitting on the vanity.

Carter leaned against the doorframe and said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"She grew up sleeping on a couch. She's never had a decent bed. You've had this room for years. It's time you let someone else have it."

"Besides, she's fun. I'm not tired of her yet."

"You and Finn can take the room downstairs. It's close to the kitchen, so it'll be easier to heat up his food."

The room downstairs was the one I'd designed for a live-in housekeeper. It was half underground, and the window only caught a strip of sunlight for a little while around noon.

I didn't argue. Once Finn's oxygen concentrator was moved in, there was barely room to turn around in there.

That week, the house slowly turned into someone else's.

Wren said the living room felt too bland, so Carter brought in contractors. They tore out the walnut paneling I'd spent six months picking out and painted the walls the bright yellow she liked.

Wren said she wanted to paint something big, so the wedding photo at the top of the stairs came down. A sketch she'd thrown together went up in its place.

Wren said she didn't even have a place of her own in New York, so Carter put the apartment he'd given me the year we got engaged in her name.

She still wouldn't give in.

"Don't think a few gifts are going to buy me. Let's see how long you can keep this up."

That kept Carter on the hook, and the gifts only came faster. Car keys. A spot in a gallery show. A whole walk-in closet full of new clothes.

Everyone under that roof could see who the real lady of the house was now.

When the hospital mailed Finn's transplant evaluation notice, the butler stood in the doorway of the living room for a long time. In the end, he slipped the letter back into his pocket. Nobody wanted to be the one to kill Carter's mood right then.

And on Wednesday, my card got declined.

The pharmacy clerk handed it back and politely told me it had hit its limit. I called the bank and found out the limit had been cut to the lowest it could go.

I stood at the counter clutching Finn's prescriptions and did the math over and over. In the end, I could only afford his meds.

Friday night, I came down with a fever.

By the middle of the night, even my bones ached. I felt around in the dark for the nightstand, trying to find something for the fever, but my legs gave out and I went down, taking the chair with me.

Music drifted down from upstairs, mixed with Wren's laughter and Carter's low voice answering her.

The noise woke Finn up. He climbed out of bed barefoot and kept shaking my arm with his little ice-cold hands.

"Mommy, Mommy, wake up..."

He pulled open the nightstand drawer and dug through it for a long time. His voice started to wobble.

"There's no medicine... there's just a piece of paper... I'm gonna get Daddy!"

I tried to grab him, but I couldn't lift my hand.

I knew that piece of paper.

It was a crumpled convenience store receipt. On the back, the same words were written in ballpoint pen, over and over: Stay awake.

I was twenty-one. Over winter break, I went to Vermont by myself to sketch and came down with acute pneumonia in a little town there. A blizzard had shut down every road, and the town clinic didn't even have enough oxygen.

Carter drove fourteen hours from New York. When the highway closed, he took back roads. When his car got stuck in the snow, he got out and dug it free with his bare hands. At four in the morning, he burst through the clinic door covered in snow, wrapped me up in his coat, and carried me to the car.

On the way to the hospital, my fever kept dragging me under. He drove with one hand and wrote on the back of the receipt with the other. At every intersection, he held it up in front of my face.

Stay awake.

Stay awake, Tessa.

Look at me. Stay awake.

When I woke up in the hospital later, he was slumped over the side of my bed, still clutching the pen he'd written dry. His eyes were red, but he smiled at me.

"If God thinks He's taking you away from me, He can forget it."

I kept that receipt for more than ten years.

The man who wrote it was upstairs right now, with another girl.

The door swung open.

Light from the hallway cut in at an angle. Carter stood in the doorway in his robe, with Finn holding on to his leg, his little chest heaving as he fought for breath.

He looked down at me on the floor and frowned hard.

"Tessa, it's the middle of the night. What kind of show are you putting on now?"

"You had the kid climb two flights of stairs to come get me, just so I'd see you lying on the floor? Go ahead. How much is it this time?"

I didn't answer.

I closed my hand around the receipt and slowly crushed it into a ball.

"What's that in your hand?"

"Nothing that matters."

He paused, then took half a step forward.

Wren's voice came from upstairs, a little impatient.

"Carter? Are you coming to look at my painting or not? The paint's drying."

He stopped.

When he spoke again, he sounded as cold as usual. He pulled a card out of his robe pocket and tossed it at my feet.

"I cut the limit on your card myself. Figured it'd keep you from blowing money. Use this one for now."

"Stop making a scene, Tessa. Just behave yourself. Once the novelty wears off with her, I'll come back."

The card bounced once on the floor and flipped over.

I recognized it. Two days ago, Wren had sat in the living room with that card and charged half a closet's worth of clothes in one go.

It was the card he'd added her to his account with.

The door shut again, and the room went dark. Finn crawled over and gently rested his little head on my shoulder.

I slowly opened my hand. The ball of paper in my palm was so crumpled that I couldn't make out a single word.

I looked at it, and suddenly I felt lighter.

It was like the boy in that blizzard more than ten years ago had been crushed right along with that piece of paper.