365 Days I Didn’t Choose

NORA

The glass table was not going to wipe itself, sadly. I knew this and I accepted it. I dragged the cloth across it in slow circles and told myself that in approximately two hours I would be out of this house and on my way to Daniel and none of this would matter anymore.

“You missed a spot,” Camille said.

I did not turn around. “I did not miss a spot,” I replied.

“Right there,” Camille said. Her voice had that particular quality it always had when she was bored and looking for something to do about it. “By the corner. It is still streaky.”

“It is fine, Camille,” I said.

“It looks terrible,” she said.

I turned around. She was standing by the doorway with a glass of juice in her hand, freshly poured, looking at the table with her head tilted like an art critic at a gallery. I looked at the table. I looked at her glass.

“Do not,” I said.

She met my eyes and set the glass down on the table I had just finished wiping.

The ring it left was perfect. Perfectly circular, perfectly deliberate, sitting right in the centre of the glass like she had measured it.

She picked the glass back up. “Oops,” she said, and walked out.

I stared at the ring on the table. I picked up the cloth and wiped it. I breathed through my nose the way I had been doing since I was about fourteen years old in this house and I told myself what I always told myself: nothing is going to trigger me today. Not today. I was going to finish these chores, get dressed, be at Daniel’s by three, and be back before seven like a normal human being living a normal life.

I was not going to let Camille take that from me.

I went back to work.

The thing about growing up in a house that is not really yours is that you learn very quickly how to make yourself useful. My mother died when I was four. My father remarried when I was six. And somewhere between those two things I became the daughter this family remembered when the floors needed mopping or the guest room needed airing out or when Patricia needed the china plates washed before company came.

I was twenty one years old and I had spent most of those years being exactly this person in exactly this house and the only thing that had kept me sane through most of it was the knowledge that one day I would leave.

Daniel was that day.

I checked the clock on the kitchen wall. 1:52.

I dropped the cloth, pushed my hair back and headed for the stairs.

I was halfway through changing when I heard it—

A car horn.

Then the deep sound of an engine in the driveway. Then the front door opening with the specific weight of someone who owns the house they are walking into.

I froze. “Dad?” I said under my breath.

I sat down on the edge of my bed and thought very quickly. He had been overseas for four months. Four months of Patricia running the house, four months of Camille having the run of everything, four months of me getting on with it without anyone to answer to or report to or perform for. And now he was back and if I went downstairs he would want to sit and talk and ask about university and how I had been and the afternoon would dissolve into exactly the kind of family reunion that would keep me pinned here until dark.

Daniel was expecting me at three.

I would wait. I would wait until Dad went to his study, which he always did within twenty minutes of arriving anywhere, and then I would slip out and send a text from the cab saying I had not been home when he arrived. Technically not even a lie.

I sat on the bed and waited, biting my fingernails and watching the clock.

Just then, my bedroom door flew open.

“Father wants you in the study,” Camille said, leaning against the frame, already looking bored by the task of delivering this information. “Family meeting. Now.”

She left without closing the door.

I sat there for a second.

“Family meeting?” I repeated quietly.

The last family meeting I had been called to was when Patricia decided the household allowances needed restructuring, which meant mine got cut and Camille’s got doubled. Before that it was when Dad’s accountant needed a signature from every family member for some estate document I had not fully understood.

Family meetings were never good news.

I got up, fixed my top and then went downstairs.

The study always felt smaller than it was.

Dark wood everywhere, bookshelves along two walls, the heavy curtains Dad preferred even in daytime. He was behind the desk when I walked in, sitting with the kind of straight backed stillness that meant he had been rehearsing something.

Patricia was beside him, composed, with her hands folded in her lap.

Camille was at the chair in the far corner, one leg crossed over the other, looking at her nails.

“Finally,” Patricia said, not looking up. “We have been waiting.”

“Patricia,” Dad said quietly, and she closed her mouth. He looked at me properly then, for the first time in four months, and his face did something it almost never did. It softened. “Nora. Sit down.”

I sat.

“How have you been?” he asked. “Since graduation. Are you well?”

“I am fine, Dad,” I said.

“Good,” he said, nodding slowly. “Good. I am proud of you. Finishing your degree, keeping the house running while I was away.” He paused. “You have always been dependable. You know that.”

Something about the way he said it made my stomach move. Dependable. The word people use when they are about to ask you for something.

“Dad,” I said. “What is going on?”

He looked at his desk. Then back at me. He cleared his throat once.

“Vance Enterprises is insolvent,” he said.

The room was quiet.

“What?” I said.

“We are insolvent, Nora. The company is collapsing,” he said. He kept his voice even, the way he always did when he was delivering something he had already made peace with. “I have been trying to manage it overseas for the past several months. The figures are not recoverable. Not without outside intervention.”

I stared at him. “How bad is it?” I asked.

“Bad enough that we lose everything if we do nothing. The company, the estate, all of it,” he said.

I sat back in my chair. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Okay, so what is the intervention? What is the plan?”

He cleared his throat again.

“You know Edmund Mercer,” he said.

“The family friend. Uncle Edmund,” I said, frowning. “He was at my matriculation ceremony.”

“Yes,” Dad said. He opened the folder on his desk and looked at something inside it. “Forty years ago your grandfather Victor and Edmund's father entered into a business agreement. A partnership. And buried inside that agreement was a provision.” He paused. “A clause. Stating that in the event of insolvency threatening either company, the eldest unmarried grandchild of both families would be required to marry within one year. Or forfeit all assets to a neutral third party trust.”

I looked at him.

He looked back at me.

“Edmund’s grandson is Cole Mercer,” he said. “CEO of Mercer Holdings.”

I waited for the rest of it. For the part where this stopped being what it sounded like.

It did not come.

I could not help it. I laughed.

“Dad,” I said, a short, disbelieving sound slipping out before I could stop it. “You cannot be serious.”

“The lawyers have confirmed it,” he said. “It is binding.”

“It is insane,” I said.

“It is real,” he replied.

“It cannot be,” I said. I sat forward. “Dad, seriously, this is not— you cannot be telling me that grandfather buried a marriage clause in a forty year old business contract and it is somehow still legally valid and you are sitting there telling me I have to—” I stopped. “No. No, I am sorry, I cannot.”

“Nora—” he began.

“I have a sister,” I said. My voice was rising and I could hear it and I could not stop it. “I have cousins. Why does it have to be me? Why is it always—”

“The clause specifies the eldest unmarried grandchild of Victor Vance,” he said quietly. “That is you.”

“That is convenient,” I said.

“Nora, I did not write the clause—” he said.

“Then find a way around it!” I said. “Hire better lawyers, contest it, do something because I am not — Dad, I cannot marry a stranger. I do not even know this person. I have never met Cole Mercer in my life and you are sitting there telling me I have one year to—”

“Nora,” Patricia said, her voice cutting through the room like a blade wrapped in silk. “That is quite enough.”

I looked at her.

She looked back at me with the patient expression she wore when she was about to say something she had been wanting to say for a long time. “I understand this is a lot to process,” she said. “But let us be realistic, shall we? You are twenty one years old with a degree and very few prospects. You have no serious career, no substantial savings, and frankly no serious relationship to speak of.” She tilted her head. “Cole Mercer is one of the wealthiest men in this country. He is accomplished, he is well connected, and this marriage would secure not only the family company but your own future.” A small pause. “Which, if we are being honest, is more than you could have arranged for yourself.”

The room was very quiet after that.

I turned to look at Camille. She was looking back at me with the smallest smile on her face. Not a kind one.

“The Mercer family will be contacted,” Dad said, his voice the voice of a man who had already made the decision and was now delivering the verdict. “The formal meeting will be arranged. I expect you to be present and to conduct yourself with dignity.” He looked at me steadily. “You can go now.”

I stood up. “Okay,” I said quietly, though my legs moving at all surprised me.

I walked out of the study and up the stairs into my room. I sat on the edge of the bed and let the tears come, sharp and fast, anger sitting right underneath them.

“Daniel,” I said under my breath.

The thought arrived like a lifeline. Daniel, who had chosen me specifically, who texted back within seconds, who knew everything about me and had stayed anyway. I would go to him tomorrow. I would tell him everything and he would know what to do. He always knew what to do. And maybe if we just moved the timeline up, if we just made things official and got married before any Mercer meeting could be arranged, then the whole thing would be moot and Dad would have to find another solution.

I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling and let myself believe it.

Suddenly my bedroom door opened.

I turned my head. “Patricia?” I said.

She stood by the frame with a small, satisfied curve to her mouth.

“I know you are upset,” she said, though there was no softness in it this time, only a thin edge of impatience. “But let us not pretend you have the luxury of refusing.” Her eyes moved over me, slow and measured. “The estate, Nora. Your father’s company. Everything your grandfather built. Gone.” She let that sit, watching me. “All because you decided your feelings mattered more.”

My throat felt tight. “So that is it?” I asked. “I just… marry someone I have never met and that fixes everything?”

Patricia’s lips curved slightly, but there was nothing kind in it. “Do not be dramatic,” she said. “You are not being asked to suffer. You are being given a solution.”

“A solution for who?” I asked quietly.

Her gaze sharpened. “For this family. Which, last I checked, you are still a part of.”

My hands curled against the bed.

“This family has given you a home, an education, a name that opens doors you would never have reached on your own,” she continued. “And now, when something is finally required of you, this is your reaction.” A small pause. “Disappointing, but not surprising.”

I looked away.

“You should be grateful,” she said. “Girls in your position do not usually get to marry into power. They beg for it.”

Something in my chest twisted, but I said nothing.

She straightened. “Do not embarrass this family. For once, be useful when it actually counts.”

She left, leaving the door open behind her.

I lay there and looked at the ceiling and thought about the word selfish and how it had been used against me my entire life in this house every single time someone wanted me to do something I did not want to do.

I closed my eyes.

“Tomorrow,” I whispered.

Daniel would have the answer. Daniel always had the answer.

Tomorrow everything would be clearer.

It had to be.

NORA

I was awake before my alarm.

Before the birds, even. I lay in the dark at five in the morning, staring at the ceiling with the thoughts of the clause weighing heavily on me.

I thought about it over and over, the way you turn something over when you already know all the sides of it but cannot stop looking. By six I had accepted that sleep was not coming back, so I just sat up, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and sat there for a moment in the quiet.

Then I heard Patricia’s door opening.

That got me moving.

I was down the stairs and in the kitchen before she reached the landing, kettle already on, cloth already out. If I didn’t look busy she would assign me something, and I could not afford to be assigned anything today. I wiped the counter. Stacked the dishes that someone had left in the sink, which was apparently nobody’s job except mine. Swept the floor, then took the bin out.

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