Chapter 4

I stood frozen at the top of the stairs, a silent witness to the desecration. The air in the foyer was thick with the scent of wood polish and Ivana' s cloying, triumphant perfume. She ran a hand over the smooth surface of my father' s desk, her touch lingering.

"Be careful with it," she instructed the movers, her voice laced with a false sweetness that made my stomach turn. "It' s very precious."

She glanced up and saw me. A slow, venomous smile spread across her face. It was the smile of a predator that had finally cornered its prey.

Corbett saw me too. He had the decency to look away, his jaw tight with shame. But he didn' t stop her. He didn' t say a word. His silence was a roar of betrayal. He was letting this happen.

I wanted to scream, to run down the stairs and throw myself in front of the desk, to protect it with my own body. But my feet were rooted to the spot, my limbs heavy with a crushing sense of defeat. What was the point? He had already made his choice.

I watched them maneuver the heavy desk through the double doors and out into the night. Gone. Just like that.

I turned and walked back to my bedroom, my movements stiff and robotic. The room felt cavernous and empty without the familiar presence of my perfume organ. The space where it had stood was a gaping wound in the room, a void that mirrored the one in my chest.

I crawled into bed, but sleep was a distant country I couldn' t reach. Every creak of the house, every distant siren, sounded like a judgment.

I must have drifted off eventually, because I was jolted awake by the feeling of the mattress dipping beside me. Corbett had slipped into bed. He didn' t touch me. He just lay there, his back to me, his breathing a tense, unhappy rhythm in the dark.

The silence stretched for what felt like hours.

"She was so happy, Jen," he finally whispered into the darkness. His voice was raw. "You should have seen her face. She said it felt like Elenor was with her."

I didn' t respond. I couldn' t. There were no words left.

"She said... she said she finally feels like she can start her own life now. Like she can finally be creative again." He paused. "This is the last thing, I promise. Then it will just be us."

His promises were worthless, empty coins in a bankrupt currency. I had nothing left to give, nothing more for them to take.

Or so I thought.

The next morning, Ivana was there for breakfast, beaming. She was showing off sketches for her new "design studio," with my perfume organ as the glorious centerpiece.

"It' s going to be a tribute to Elenor' s artistic spirit," she announced to Corbett, completely ignoring my presence. "I' m even thinking of launching a small line of home goods. 'Elenor' s Dream.' "

Corbett smiled, a sad, broken smile. "She would have loved that, Vana."

Ivana then turned to me, her eyes sparkling with malice. "Oh, Jenna, I almost forgot. There was a box of your little bottles inside the desk. Don' t worry, I didn' t throw them out. I put them in the guest room closet for you."

My essential oils. The core of my work. The irreplaceable scents I had collected and created over years. Relief, sharp and fierce, shot through me. They were safe.

But her smile told me otherwise.

"I did have a little accident, though," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I was trying to smell one of them, and I' m just so clumsy. The bottle slipped." She held up her hand, showing a small, perfectly applied bandage on her finger. "It was the one that smelled like old books and rain."

My blood ran cold.

Not that one. Please, not that one.

It was a custom blend. My father' s scent. I had spent years perfecting it after he died, trying to capture the essence of him: the smell of his old library, the pipe tobacco he sometimes smoked, the faint scent of damp earth from his garden after a storm. It was all I had left of him.

I shot up from my chair and ran, not walked, to the guest room. I threw open the closet door.

There, on the floor, was a shattered glass bottle. And soaked into the pristine white carpet, a dark, spreading stain.

The air was thick with the scent of my father.

My memory of him, liquefied and slowly evaporating into nothing.

I fell to my knees, a sound of pure anguish tearing from my throat. I tried to scoop up the glass, the liquid, as if I could somehow put it back together. The sharp edges of the broken bottle sliced into my palms, but I didn' t feel the pain.

All I felt was the final, devastating loss.

Corbett and Ivana appeared in the doorway.

"Jenna, what' s wrong?" Corbett asked, his voice laced with alarm.

Ivana peeked around him, a look of fake horror on her face. "Oh my goodness! Is that what was in the bottle? I am so, so sorry, Jenna. It was an accident, I swear."

I looked up at Corbett, my face wet with tears, my hands dripping with blood and the last remnants of my father.

"She did this on purpose," I choked out. "She destroyed him."

Corbett looked from my bleeding hands to Ivana' s trembling lip. He saw my raw, unrestrained grief, and he saw her carefully constructed fragility.

He knelt down and tried to take my hands. "Jenna, calm down. It was an accident. We can get you more. I' ll buy you any perfume you want."

"You can' t buy him back!" I screamed, snatching my hands away. "You don' t understand! You never understand!"

Ivana started to cry. "Corbett, she' s scaring me. She' s looking at me like she wants to hurt me."

He stood up, his face hardening. He pulled Ivana behind him, shielding her from me. From his grieving, bleeding wife.

"That' s enough, Jenna," he said, his voice cold as ice. "You' re hysterical. You' re upsetting Ivana. Look at what you' ve done to her."

He turned his back on me completely, wrapping his arms around Ivana, whispering soothing words into her hair.

I was on the floor, surrounded by the ghost of my father, my hands bleeding, my heart shattered into a million pieces. And my husband, my protector, stood with my tormentor, blaming me for my own pain.

That was the moment. The definitive, irreversible end. The last shred of hope that the man I married was still in there somewhere, died. And in its place, a calm, chilling certainty took root.

I was done.