“There’s a dustpan in that closet,” Ursula said, as if she were the one who lived in the house.

I retrieved it and cleaned up the mess as best I could. As I did, Ursula removed another bottle from the wine fridge. She carefully extracted the cork and poured a glass for herself.

“How’s your wrist?” I asked. “Father said you had an accident this morning.”

“I tripped and fell,” Ursula said. “It’s only a sprain. Your father likely told you I was drunk, but I wasn’t. Not very drunk, anyway. I was upset about Caroline.”

“I’m glad it was just a sprain. You need to be careful.”

“I wanted to ask how you are feeling, dear,” Ursula said, then took a long gulp of chablis.

My stepmother had never been subtle. I suspected that my father, after his marriage to my mother—a volatile stage actress everyone described as complicated—was glad to be married to a woman who was straightforward in her wants. Ursula liked money, jewelry, and alcohol, though not necessarily in that order.

“It’s been a very long day,” I said.

“A long day, a long week, a long year,” Ursula said. “It never ends, does it?”

Without asking, she reached in the cupboard for a tumbler and poured some wine for me. “No, thanks.”

“You’re going to want it,” Ursula said. “What did you do to your hand?”

She was right; I took a long drink. It never ceased to amaze me that—no matter how inebriated she was—Ursula was the most meticulous person I’d ever met. No detail went past her unnoticed.

“Did my father send you over?”

“Absolutely not. Nor do I report to him.”

“I used to think you were reporting to Klaus.” Ursula was the younger sister of Klaus von Strohm, my father’s business partner. Where my father was jocular and outgoing, Klaus was saturnine and stern.

“My brother the Arschgesicht?” Ursula raised an eyebrow as she elegantly cursed him out. “I’m certain he hoped I would report back to him when I married your father. Men always think women exist for their service. They can fuck themselves.” She took a long drink. “Your hand, dear?”

“I burned my hand on a candle in the church today.”

“Only one candle?”

“A few.”

She finished her glass and set it on the counter. “I thought you stopped doing that years ago.”

“I did. Today was the first time in a very long time.” This was the truth; I hadn’t sliced or burned my skin since Teddy was born. In the past couple of years—ever since I’d left the family business—I hadn’t even thought about it.

“Are you taking drugs again?”

“No. I haven’t since I went through rehab.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Ursula poured more wine into her glass. “Because that was a nightmarish time for us all.”