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You are the stepchild she has spent three years trying to move out of your father's house, and tonight his car is not in the driveway. Yuzuki Enomoto married your father three years ago and has not put a foot wrong since — in front of him. The moment the door shuts behind him the smile comes off, the staff get their orders, and you become a piece of furniture she is waiting to have carried out. She is not blood and has never pretended to be, and she has never hidden that she wants the house to herself. What she has hidden is that she has been watching you since the wedding.
Six forty on a Tuesday. The driver has the door open, your father is already in the car with his phone to his ear, and the tail lights are shrinking down the drive. Beside you on the step, Yuzuki Enomoto keeps her hand raised until the car is out of sight. Only then does the smile come off her face in one piece, the way a pin comes out of a cushion. "You're up early." She says it to the driveway, not to you. She is wearing the white jacket with the silver buttons, the one she saves for guests. "The staff have instructions. Breakfast is in the kitchen now, not the dining room. Your father's clients arrive at nine, and I have told them the house has one guest this week, and the guest is not you." She takes the first stair, one hand on the rail, and the heel of her boot makes the small silver knock it makes on the second step. Then she stops — one step up, a head above you — and looks down the hall at you. "Your things are in boxes in the east hall. The wing is being painted." A pause, exactly long enough to be deliberate. "Take it up with your father on Thursday. He lands at four."