By the time I wandered toward the fire, her shoulders had relaxed.
I slowed near her chair.
“Once they vote me in, I can stop pretending to be a saint at every brunch,” Angela said. “Diane practically runs the membership committee, and she loves me. It’s basically done.”
I’d seen that name before.
Priya giggled. “And you brought the stepdaughter, why?”
“Family girls’ weekend photos. Application material.” Angela sipped her wine. “They love that wholesome-family stuff.”
I stopped for half a second.
Diane.
I’d seen that name before.
“I mean it.”
That night I lay in my tent listening to comments pour in that I couldn’t read fast enough.
Someone had clipped the ‘maid’ line. Someone else had captioned it.
A stranger in Ohio wrote, ‘Girl, keep filming.’
Morning came with a different Angela.
“You are so ungrateful.”
“There she is,” she cooed, arms open wide as I climbed out. “Come here, sweetie, Beth’s taking pictures for the committee packet.”
She pulled me against her hip. I smelled her perfume and last night’s wine.
Good thing I’d started the livestream in time.
I stepped back. “You can make your own eggs for the picture.”
“Lily.”
“I mean it.”
The perfect-stepmother act.
Her fingers dug into my shoulder before she remembered the audience. “You are so ungrateful. Your father always goes soft on his little girl. Do you know how exhausting that is?”
“Then why did you marry him if I’m such a problem?”
Angela’s smile tightened. “Don’t start this.”
“You just said Dad goes soft on me. You complain about me constantly. So why marry someone with a daughter?”
Nobody adopts the used car.
“Lily,” Renee warned.
But I kept looking at Angela. “Was I always just something you had to put up with?”
For a second, she remembered the pictures. The application. The perfect-stepmother act.
Then her face changed.
“Honey, I didn’t marry Mark because I wanted to be your mother.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “You came with him. Nobody adopts the used car when they’re buying the new one.”
The clip was already there.
Nobody laughed this time.
Priya stared at Angela. “Jesus, Angie.”
For five years after Mom died, I’d tried to make myself easy to live with.
I stayed quiet when Angela picked at me. I did what she asked. I kept giving her another chance because Dad kept asking me to.
Maybe some part of me had believed that if I tried hard enough, there’d still be room for me in whatever family Dad was building.
I had my answer.
Angela had just answered that for me. She flicked her hair. “Now grab the pan. Beth, get the light behind us.”
“Get it yourself.”
A few minutes later, I went back to my tent to check the livestream.
The clip was already there.
I found Diane’s old comment, opened her profile, and sent her the video.
It was Dad.
No explanation. No accusation.
Just Angela’s own words.
I didn’t know if Diane would even open it.
But twenty minutes later, I had my answer.
I walked past her toward the water, and that’s when both our phones started buzzing at the same time.
‘We’ll talk at home.’
Mine wouldn’t stop. Notifications stacked on notifications, a soft avalanche against my thigh.
Angela’s phone rang once, twice. She glanced at the screen and her whole face rearranged into honey. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said, turning her back to me.
It was Dad.
Angela answered Dad’s call by the fire in her syrup voice, telling him the weekend was wonderful.
“I put a little surprise in your pink bag before you left,” Dad said.
“You set me up.”
She squealed, and Renee whistled about jewelry. Angela rushed into her tent.
She came back scarlet, holding the hotspot and a folded note.
The note read: ‘Thanks for the live feed. We’ll talk at home.’
Angela wheeled on me. “Did you know about this?”
“Yeah. I did.”
That had been my plan all along.
“Don’t act like you didn’t know.”
The night before the trip, Dad had given me a portable hotspot and a power bank.
