I let it ring four times before I answered, because I wanted Vivian to feel exactly how it sounded to be left waiting on the other end of a locked door. When I finally picked up, there was none of the commanding tone she’d used in my kitchen three days earlier. “Renata,” she said, and her voice was thin and shaking. “Please. There are children out here. It’s freezing. I’m sorry, all right? Is that what you want? Just open the door.”

I set my wine down and looked out at the dark Pacific through the cabin window. “I want you to hear yourself,” I said quietly. “Three days ago you stood in my house and told me to stock the fridge and get out of your way. You called it ‘already decided.’ You never once asked. So no, Vivian. I’m not opening the door, because it was never yours to be let into.” She started to argue, then I heard her sister’s voice rise sharply behind her, and something in the background shifted. “Fine,” Vivian snapped, the fear curdling back into anger. “Then I’ll tell everyone exactly what kind of woman my son married.” And that was when I decided to tell her the one thing she still didn’t know.