Pāhonoa te oro

*The reception wore on, each minute stretching into an eternity of performed normalcy. The sweet, now a phantom of humiliation on Liana's tongue, seemed to hang in the air between the three of them. Jane maintained her placid merchant's-wife smile, but her eyes had taken on a glassy, hardened quality, like chips of sea-ice. She guided Liana through the room with subtle touches—a hand on the shoulder to steer, a slight pressure to halt—all part of the choreography of ownership they were displayin