The Locket on the Ballroom Floor

Chapter 10 - A Visit From Celeste

Celeste came to Lily’s apartment alone.

No driver waited outside. No assistant held an umbrella. No pearl-coated threat stood behind her. She arrived at dusk, soaked from the rain, her champagne-world posture ruined by the climb up two flights of narrow stairs.

Lily opened the door and nearly shut it again.

Celeste caught the edge with one hand. “Please.”

The word surprised them both.

Noah was with Grace at the grocery store, which was the only reason Lily allowed Celeste inside.

The apartment made Celeste look unreal. She stood beside the chipped table where Noah colored dinosaurs, across from the tiny kitchen where Lily stretched soup into three meals, beneath a ceiling stain shaped like an island. Her diamond earrings seemed embarrassed to be there.

“If you came to threaten me, be original,” Lily said.

Celeste removed her gloves slowly. “I came to tell you Vivian will file for emergency guardianship if you refuse to sign.”

Lily felt the floor tilt.

“She’ll claim Ethan is unstable, you are manipulative, and Noah is being used as leverage. She has doctors who will say what she needs them to say.”

“Why are you telling me?”

Celeste looked toward Noah’s drawings taped to the wall. One showed Lily, Noah, and a tall stick figure labeled maybe daddy in backward letters.

“Because last night, when I saw his picture, I thought…” Her voice failed. She tried again. “I thought about what kind of person looks at a child and sees a strategy.”

Lily did not soften. “You called him a scandal.”

“I know.”

“You pushed me.”

“I know.”

“You were going to marry the man who was already my husband.”

Celeste’s face flushed. “Vivian told me the marriage was fake. She said you forged it after the accident. She said Ethan pitied you and you used him.”

“And you believed her because it let you win.”

Celeste looked at the floor.

That, at least, was honest.

She reached into her coat and removed a small flash drive. “This is from Vivian’s study. Audio from the night before the accident. She recorded everything in that room.”

Lily did not take it immediately.

Celeste placed it on the table beside a blue crayon.

“Why?”

Celeste’s eyes filled, but she did not let tears fall. “Because I spent ten years becoming the kind of woman Vivian would approve of. Last night I realized that meant becoming someone a child should fear.”

Lily stared at the flash drive.

“And what do you want for this sudden conscience?”

Celeste gave a broken smile. “Nothing you would believe.”

“Try.”

“I want to stop before I become her.”

For the first time, Lily saw not an enemy, but a woman standing at the edge of the same darkness that had swallowed the Vale house whole.

She picked up the flash drive.

“Leave before Noah comes back,” Lily said.

Celeste nodded.

At the door, she paused. “Lily?”

Lily did not answer.

Celeste whispered, “He still loves you.”