My sister pulled my chair away at her wedding reception and looked me straight in the eyes.

Vanessa came to the Blue Lantern on Tuesday morning.

I was alone.

Eddie didn't come in until nine, and it was just past eight.

I heard the back door — she still had a key to the old lock, which I had not yet changed, an oversight I noted and filed away — and then her footsteps on the kitchen tile.

She looked like she hadn't slept.

The wedding-day composure was gone.

She was wearing a coat over what looked like yesterday's clothes, and her hair was pulled back in a way that suggested speed rather than intention.

"I need to talk to you," she said.

"All right."

She pulled out a stool at the prep counter and sat down.

I kept my hands busy with the stock I was reducing, watching her in my peripheral vision.

"Liam left," she said.

I didn't respond.

"He left Sunday night.

He said he needed time to think." She pressed her fingers against the counter.

"He found the Meridian documents on my laptop.

I didn't know he'd looked."

"What did he say?"

"He said he didn't recognize me." Her voice was steady but thin, like a wire pulled too tight.

"He said he'd married someone he thought he knew."

I turned the heat down under the stock.

"What do you want from me, Vanessa?"

"I want you to call Claire Weller and tell her it was a misunderstanding.

Tell her the deed situation is a family matter and that we're resolving it internally.

Tell her the consulting arrangement was legitimate." She looked at me.

"If you do that, I'll sign the Blue Lantern back to you properly.

Full transfer.

No contest."

"It's already mine."

"Legally, yes.

But a clean transfer is better than a contested one.

You know that.

Gerald knows that." She leaned forward slightly.

"Nora.

If this goes to litigation, everything comes out.

The consulting fees, the investor documents, all of it.

That's not just bad for me.

It's bad for Dad.

It's bad for the family name."

"You should have thought about the family name before you billed us two hundred thousand dollars."

Her jaw tightened.

"I built the Aster relationship from nothing.

I spent two years cultivating Claire Weller.

I brought a deal to this family that would have made the Blue Lantern into something real—"

"It was already real."

"Twelve tables and a free soup kitchen." Her voice sharpened.

"That's not a legacy.

That's a hobby."

"Sixty people ate here yesterday," I said.

"Some of them have been coming for three years.

A woman brought her grandchildren because it's the only hot meal they get on Sunday.

That's not a hobby, Vanessa.

That's the whole point."

She looked at me for a long moment.

Something moved across her face — not quite regret, but the shadow of it.

"I'm not going to call Claire Weller," I said.

"Gerald is handling the deed transfer.

The consulting fee recovery is a separate matter and it's in his hands now.

What happens with Aster is between you and them." I turned back to the stock.

"You should call a lawyer.

A good one.

Not the one who incorporated Meridian."

"So that's it."

"That's it."

She stood.

She stood there for another moment, and I thought she might say something else — something that would crack the whole conversation open in a different direction.

But she didn't.

"I never hated you," she said finally.

"I just always felt like you got the part of this family I wanted."

I looked at her.

"What part?"

"Grandma." She said it simply, without drama.

"She always chose you."

She walked out through the back.

The door closed behind her.

I stood at the stove and listened to her footsteps fade down the alley.

I didn't know if that was true.