On our wedding night, I had to give up my bed to my mother-in-law after everyone insisted she was "too drunk" to stay anywhere else.

I picked up the vial.

It was lighter than I expected.

Completely empty, the glass still faintly warm from sitting near the lamp all night.

I turned it over in my fingers, looking for any marking, any pharmacy sticker, anything that would tell me what had been inside it.

There was nothing.

"Julian." I set it on the nightstand and looked at him directly.

"I am not asking again."

He sat up slowly.

He didn't look at his mother.

He didn't look at the vial.

He looked at the window, at the pale morning light coming through the curtains, as though he was calculating something.

Victoria crossed to the chair in the corner and sat down.

She folded her hands in her lap.

Patient.

Composed.

Like a woman who had already decided how this conversation was going to end.

"It's a sedative," Julian said.

The word landed quietly.

"A sedative," I repeated.

"It's mild.

It's not dangerous.

Mom has trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places and she—"

"She what?" My voice didn't rise.

I wouldn't let it.

"She took a sedative in our bedroom, on our wedding night, in our bed?"

"Elena, it wasn't like that."

"Then tell me what it was like, Julian.

Because from where I'm standing, your mother faked being drunk, took over our room, took something that knocked her out in my bed, and now there is a stain on my wedding sheets that I still don't have an explanation for."

Victoria made a small sound.

Not quite a laugh.

Something softer and more dangerous than a laugh.

"The stain," she said, "is from the wine.

I knocked a glass over in the night.

I didn't want to wake anyone."

I looked at the nightstand.

There was no wine glass.

No ring mark from a glass.

No damp cloth, no tissue, nothing that suggested anyone had tried to clean anything up.

"There's no glass," I said.

"I moved it to the bathroom."

"When?"

"During the night."

"You were sedated during the night."

She smiled.

"I woke briefly."

Julian stood up and put himself between us.

Not facing his mother.

Facing me.

His hands came up slightly, the way they did when he wanted to slow something down before it became a scene.

"Elena.

Let's not do this right now.

We have guests downstairs.

My aunts are still here.

Can we just—"

"Can we just what?" I stepped around him.

"Can we just pretend I didn't sleep on the sofa on my wedding night while your mother slept in our bed?

Can we just pretend there isn't an unlabeled vial sitting on my nightstand?"

"I'll explain everything later.

I promise."

"You said that downstairs last night.

You said it when she walked through that door.

You keep promising to explain later, Julian, and later keeps becoming now."

He looked at me.

Then, for just a moment, his eyes cut sideways toward his mother.

It was the smallest movement.

Half a second.

But I caught it, and I understood it immediately.

He wasn't looking at her for support.

He was checking.

Checking what she wanted him to say.

My husband of less than twelve hours was waiting for his mother's permission to speak.

Victoria stood up from the chair.

She smoothed her dress, picked up her handbag from the floor beside the bed, and walked toward the door with the unhurried ease of someone leaving a meeting she had already won.

"I'll give you two some privacy," she said.

"Julian, come find me before your aunts leave."

She didn't look at me when she said goodbye.

She didn't say goodbye at all.

The door clicked shut behind her.

Julian turned back to me, and I saw it then — the relief on his face that she was gone.

Not the relief of a man who had just been freed to speak honestly.

The relief of a man who had just been released from something he didn't know how to name.

"What is she holding over you?" I asked.

His jaw tightened.

"Nothing."

"Julian."