Chapter 5 - The Christmas Day Setup
Christmas morning in our house did not begin with the frantic unwrapping of hundreds of dollars of designer merchandise. It began with the soft, yellow glow of our small pine tree in the corner of the living room, illuminating four carefully selected gifts.
For Luna: a high-powered digital microscope that could connect to her laptop, three blank specimen albums, a set of noise-canceling headphones with velvet ear cups that wouldn't irritate her sensory skin, and a silver necklace with a tiny, anatomically correct pendant of an *Actias luna*—the Luna moth.
When she unwrapped the necklace, she didn't scream or jump up and down. She sat completely still on the rug, her fingers tracing the delicate silver veins of the moth’s wings. Then, she looked up at me, her large hazel eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
"Mommy helped you pick this," she stated. It wasn't a question.
"She told me about it a long time ago, bug," I said, leaning down to fasten the clasp around her neck. "She said that whenever you wear it, you should remember that you are named after something that finds its way through the dark without needing anyone else's permission."
Luna touched the cold silver against her collarbone and nodded once, with great solemnity. "Transverse orientation."
"Exactly."
By midday, my sister Mara’s sister, Clara, arrived from Charlotte. Clara was an artist, breezy, eccentric, and fiercely protective of Luna. She had refused to attend the Grove Park dinner three years ago after witnessing my mother criticize Luna’s eating habits, and she had spent every Christmas since offering to take Luna for the afternoon so I wouldn't have to carry the burden alone.
"Look at this place," Clara said, walking into our warm bungalow, shaking the snow from her wool cap. "It smells like roasted garlic and peace. How’s the Grove Park circus doing?"
"They’re currently deep in the ninth circle of culinary hell," I said, handing her a mug of mulled cider.
Clara grinned, her teeth white against her dark lipstick. "Good. They deserve every burned biscuit. Wes, are you sure you want to go over there tonight alone?"
"I’m not alone," I said, tapping the leather portfolio on the hallway table. "I have Marcus Vance and seventy years of contract law with me."
"Don't hold back," Clara said, her voice dropping into fierce sincerity. "Mara hated how they treated you. Even when she was sick, she told me that Richard and Eleanor were vampires. She told me they’d bleed you dry if you let them. End it, Wesley."
"I will."
At 7:45 PM, I stepped out into the night.
The temperature had plunged into the twenties, the wet roads freezing into black ice that gleamed like polished slate beneath the streetlamps. I wore a tailored charcoal wool coat over a crisp black sweater and dark trousers. No apron. No boxes of groceries. No bakery boxes.
The drive to Grove Park took twenty minutes.
Kimberly Avenue was one of the most prestigious corridors in Asheville. Stately Tudor revivals, grand Colonials, and French Normandy estates sat back from the winding road, surrounded by century-old oaks and manicured boxwood hedges. The neighborhood was quiet, wealthy, and insular—a world built on generational wealth and polite pretension.
At the end of a long, curving driveway sat 424 Kimberly Avenue.
The house was blazing with light. Every window on the first floor was illuminated, casting golden squares across the snow-dusted lawn. Outside, four luxury vehicles were parked in the circular turnaround: my father’s leased Lexus, Ainsley’s financed Audi, a brand-new Mercedes S-Class belonging to the Pembertons, and a vintage Jaguar.
I parked my ten-year-old Subaru at the base of the driveway, deliberately leaving it in plain view behind the Mercedes.
I turned off the engine.
I picked up the leather portfolio from the passenger seat. Inside my coat pocket, the small Bluetooth speaker was fully charged and paired to my phone. The audio file was queued to the thirty-second mark, precisely where Ainsley’s voice began discussing the quitclaim deed.
I sat in the dark car for one full minute, breathing slowly, steadily.
I thought of Mara, lying in the hospice bed, begging me to protect our daughter’s future.
I thought of Luna, sitting on a kitchen stool last Christmas, eating cold turkey off a paper plate while my family laughed in the formal dining room ten feet away.
I opened the car door and stepped out into the freezing mountain air.
The crunch of my boots on the gravel driveway was the only sound in the night. With every step toward the massive oak front doors, the weight that had pressed down on my spine for four years seemed to lighten, replaced by an absolute, cold certainty.
I didn't knock.
May you like
I turned the brass knob and pushed the door open.
***