Instead, she stood in stocking feet near the window, one hand wrapped around her phone, listening to Victoria Harrison speak in the triumphant, polished voice she reserved for moments when she believed she had finally cornered someone.
“You’re banned from the family beach house forever,” Victoria said.
The words came through the speaker with almost theatrical precision, every syllable sharpened and placed, as if she had rehearsed the sentence in front of a mirror.
Alexandra did not answer right away.
Outside, traffic crawled along the avenue six floors below. A bus sighed at the curb. Somewhere, a siren wailed and then dissolved into the low mechanical breath of the city. In the window, Alexandra could see her own reflection layered over the skyline: dark hair pulled into an untidy knot, oversized gray sweater falling off one shoulder, tired eyes, bare face, the kind of woman who looked younger when she laughed and older when she had not slept.
“What did you say?” she asked at last.
