Chapter 22 - CLAUDIA’S LETTER
Claudia wrote Lily through counsel for years.
Lily refused until seventeen.
Then one.
Claudia wrote:
I told myself the porch was punishment because admitting it was cruelty would have forced me to open the door.
Good.
Then:
I resented that Snowmere’s future depended on protections centered on you because I believed adulthood and competence entitled me to decide more than a child.
Better.
Then:
Your father feared losing me. I used that fear.
Lily stopped.
“Did she love Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Did Dad love her?”
“Yes.”
“People are exhausting.”
Correct.
At twenty-three, Lily chose one mediated meeting.
Claudia was sixty-one? She was 41 at start, 20 years later 61.
Still composed.
Older.
No wineglass.
Lily asked:
“When you saw me lying behind the bench, why didn’t you open the door?”
Claudia cried.
“Because opening it meant admitting you had won.”
Lily stared.
“I was three.”
“I know.”
“What did I win?”
Silence.
Exactly.
There had been no contest except the one Claudia invented.
Lily asked:
“Did you want the house more than me?”
Claudia answered:
“I wanted control more than I cared about your safety in those hours.”
Ugly.
True.
Lily nodded.
May you like
“One meeting is enough.”
It was.
