I kept my head down, my heavy canvas tote bag bumping against my hip. All I wanted was the dark sanctuary of my cramped basement bedroom. I had been awake for twenty-two hours. Between rotating patient beds in the pediatric oncology ward and secretly agonizing over the final statistical models for my doctoral thesis in the bio-lab, my mind was fraying at the edges.
As I tried to quietly skirt past the dining room archway, Victoria’s sharp voice snapped like a wet towel.
“Clara. Stop creeping around.”
She sat at the head of the dining table, meticulously painting her nails a blood-red crimson. She didn’t bother to look up. With a pointed, manicured finger, she shoved a towering stack of grease-stained porcelain plates toward the edge of the table.
“Clean those up before you go to sleep. Haley has a very important brand partnership shoot tomorrow morning, and we cannot have the kitchen looking like a slum. You know how sensitive she is to visual clutter.”
