The smoke alarm shrieked, shattering the morning calm of the Upper East Side townhouse. William Croft, formerly the master of a sprawling estate with a staff of fifty, stood in a small, smoke-filled kitchen, waving a tea towel frantically at the ceiling.
“Daddy, it’s loud,” Leo whimpered from his high chair, covering his ears.
“I know, buddy, I know,” William coughed, sliding a pan of blackened, unrecognizable pancakes off the burner. He looked at the mess–the spilled flour, the eggshells on the floor, the burnt breakfast. For the first time in his life, there was no chef to fix it, no cleaner to sweep it away. He was “The Exile,” stripped of his billions and left with only the domestic reality he had never learned to navigate.
“Need help?”
Victoria stood in the doorway. She wasn’t wearing the “Revenge Dress” or the hospital gown; she wore jeans and a sweater, looking like the mother she was fighting to be. She didn’t mock him. She walked over, turned on the extractor fan, and took the burnt pan from his hand.
“I wanted to make him a normal breakfast,” William confessed, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t even know how to use this stove.”
“You’re learning,” Victoria said softly, pouring a bowl of cereal for Leo instead. She watched William wipe the flour from his face, seeing not the titan of industry who had bought her a career, but a man humbled by a spatula. For the first time since the memory flood, she didn’t see a jailer; she saw a father trying to survive.