With each restrained kiss, I’m reminded of Dad’s note—reminded of his lack of trust, of his isolation at the end, of how they all turned on him.

But at least Nítuchí isn’t in this group. Too busy folding cocktail napkins into swans, I guess, thank baby Jesus.

When they turn back to their conversations, Noni drags me toward a high-top table, her cheeks burning.

“Manon, stop. We have to say something,” I tell her. “Even if it’s a bullshit ‘thanks for coming.’ We can’t just hide from them.”

“We’re not ready,” she whispers back.

I snag two glasses of wine off a tray moving past. “This isn’t fucking Karate Kid.”

“You know that’s not what I mean,” she whispers in between sips. “We’ve had an emotionally taxing day. Let’s not engage with people we can’t trust right now in anything more than a superficial way.”

“Fine.” I pull out my phone to text Linos, as Noni stares into her glass.

That’s when I hear the first whispers around me, as if we’re nothing but ghosts, from men I don’t recognize.

“Are they selling that Stökéwood monstrosity in the countryside?” an unfamiliar voice says.

I freeze.

A slurping sound, loose lips taking in sweet wine. “You haven’t heard?” one heavy-lidded man tells another, who hunches closer, conspiratorially. “It’s said the old bastard left them nothing but debts.”

We speak Vilosh. Everyone here should know that. I spoke it with so many of their friends, with so many of their children, ten years ago.

“A pity Mireille left us so soon. At least she left of her own accord and did not suffer through an illness like dear Eve Selby.” An old costar, recently deceased from cancer, her five beloved children at her bedside.

Noni’s nails dig full-on half-moons into my forearms.

“A true lady, Mireille. Up until the end, of course.”

“Do they think some suave lover swept her off to a private castle in Austria?” Noni whispers to me.

I turn my service on and off, desperate for a text back to distract me. So I won’t stomp up to these jerks and shut them down. I taste champagne slime in the back of my mouth, where I’ve been biting my tongue.

“I mean. It’s not like we really knew her, either,” I say, all nonchalance outside and all disorienting fury on the inside, and she frowns at me.

“I remember when they caution-taped every entry and exit to the forest,” says another wheedling voice, “looking for any trace of her. It’s as if she just blew away. She was so thin in the end, you know.”