When Judge Elden Marwick looked down at my coffee-stained apron, asking if my ‘genius brain’ could count beyond ten, and let my parents laugh as if they were already burying me, he didn’t know that the woman they were mocking had a tape recorder in her pocket, a Harvard law degree in her briefcase, and a grandmother who had prepared a final trap specifically for rooms like this.

My mother gave a little laugh.

“Mother, don’t be dramatic. She has everything.”

“You give her things,” Eleanor said. “Not a life.”

Then she looked at me.

“Pack a bag. You’re coming to Larks Falls with me.”

I stopped breathing. I looked at my parents, waiting for outrage, waiting for love, waiting for even the most performative version of protest.

I expected them to say absolutely not. I expected them to be offended by the idea of losing me. Instead, I watched them do math behind their eyes.

If I left, there would be no school pickups. No scheduling. No hovering staff.

No disruption to their dinners, launches, trips, or photo ops. “Well,” my mother said at last, slowly, “it might be good for her to experience something a little… simpler. For a semester.”

“For as long as she needs,” Eleanor said.