Chapter 5 - THE CHILD INTERVIEW
The interviewer asked Eluned simple questions.
Who lives with you?
Dad.
Who visits?
Grandpa used to.
Aunt Morgause.
Cerys.
Then food.
“Did anyone ever tell you you couldn’t eat?”
Eluned said:
“Aunt Morgause says helpers eat after.”
“Who are helpers?”
“Me.”
“Why?”
“Because Dad needs help.”
There.
Morgause had turned my reliance on family into Eluned’s debt.
Then:
“What kinds of helping?”
Setting table.
Clearing dishes.
Folding napkins.
Normal.
Then:
“Anything else?”
Cleaning Cerys’s shoes.
Picking up Cerys’s room.
Carrying party bags.
Standing beside the coat rack to “watch guests’ things.”
That last one made my stomach twist.
Servant play.
Then:
“Did you get food afterward?”
Usually.
Important.
Not starvation.
Not chronic deprivation.
Sometimes she ate after everyone else.
Once she was told no dessert.
Once she was made to wait nearly an hour because she “didn’t finish polishing.”
Then the Sunday Dad had texted about.
Eluned remembered.
Morgause told her to remove her glasses because:
“You don’t need glasses to scrub.”
She put them on top of the refrigerator.
Eluned cleaned mud from Cerys’s boots.
Then was told she could eat.
Dad arrived unexpectedly.
He had finished his appointment early.
He saw Eluned without glasses.
Saw the boots.
Saw her untouched plate.
He became angry.
He gave the glasses back.
Fed her.
Argued with Morgause.
Eluned hid in the bathroom.
Then Dad took her home.
I had not known.
Why?
Because Dad told her:
“I’ll talk to your father.”
Then he died before I returned from Atlanta.
My throat closed when the interviewer summarized.
Eluned had believed he did tell me.
When I never mentioned it, she assumed:
Dad knew and agreed.
That was the worst part.
My silence was accidental.
To her, it was permission.
Then why didn’t she tell me herself?
Because Morgause said:
“Your father already knows what it costs to have everyone helping him.”
There.
A lie.
Not sophisticated.
Effective.
Then the glasses at the dinner were not the first time Morgause had taken them.
First time she broke them.
Escalation.
Then the interview clarified:
Cerys did not order Eluned around.
Sometimes Cerys helped her.
Once Cerys brought her food secretly.
Good.
May you like
No favored-child villain.
Only a child trapped in her mother’s ranking system.
