Chapter 4 - The Daughter Caught Between Two Homes|
Lucy was twenty-one, old enough to understand complicated relationships but young enough to still believe her parents might somehow stop hurting each other.
I had helped raise her from the age of eight. I had attended school meetings, sat beside her during a frightening appendectomy, and spent countless nights listening while she talked about her mother and father. I had never tried to replace Bianca. I had never wanted Lucy to choose between us.
So when Elena put the call on speaker, I felt my heart sink.
“Lucy, sweetheart,” I said, “I don't want you caught in the middle.”
“Then why did you leave?”
Her question wasn't cruel. It was confused.
I took a breath.
“Your father asked me to sleep on the sofa so your mother could sleep in our bed. I told him I wasn't comfortable with that. When he refused to discuss it, I left.”
“Mom said the pipe flooded her bedroom.”
“I understand that. I offered her a guest room.”
“Dad said you were angry because he helped her.”
I closed my eyes.
“That isn't true. I've helped your mother many times. I respect her as your mother. This is about your father deciding that my feelings don't matter.”
Lucy was quiet.
Then she asked, “Did you really leave him over one night?”
“No. I left because of what that night showed me.”
I wanted to tell her about the years of small concessions, the endless emotional labor, the way I had become so practiced at anticipating Dante's needs that I barely knew how to recognize my own. But Lucy didn't need a thirteen-year history delivered like evidence in a trial.
She needed to know she was loved.
“I love you,” I told her. “That hasn't changed.”
“I love you too.”
Her voice cracked.
“But I don't know what I'm supposed to do.”
“Nothing. You don't have to do anything. Your parents' marriage is not your responsibility, and neither is mine.”
After we hung up, Elena wiped her eyes.
“She has spent her whole life watching adults turn their problems into her burden.”
I nodded.
“I never wanted that for her.”
“Then don't let Dante make you responsible for protecting everyone from the truth.”
That evening, Lucy came to see me. She arrived at Elena's house carrying a paper bag from a bakery I used to take her to after school.
She looked embarrassed.
“I brought your favorite lemon cookies.”
I smiled.
“You remembered.”
“Of course I remembered.”
We sat at the kitchen table and talked. She told me that Bianca had returned to the condominium after the plumber repaired the pipe, but Dante had insisted she stay at the mansion for another night.
“Why?” I asked.
Lucy shrugged.
“Dad said she was still shaken.”
“Was she?”
“I don't know. She seemed fine when I saw her.”
I didn't press the point.
Lucy twisted the paper bag between her hands.
“There's something else. Mom said she and Dad have been talking about getting back together.”
I felt a sharp ache, but I kept my face still.
“Did she tell you that?”
“She said Dad has been unhappy for a long time.”
I looked at the young woman across from me.
“Lucy, your father and I have problems. But whatever happens between us, you don't have to carry messages for either of us.”
“I know.”
She hesitated.
“Do you think Dad still loves you?”
It was the hardest question she could have asked.
“I don't know what he feels,” I said honestly. “I know what he does. And right now, his actions have made it impossible for me to feel loved by him.”
Lucy nodded slowly.
When she left, she hugged me tightly.
“I don't want to lose you.”
“You won't lose me because your father and I are struggling.”
I watched her walk to her car, then returned to the kitchen.
My laptop was open on the table. Elena's birthday plan filled the screen, along with a message from Dante's event coordinator asking me to approve a final seating adjustment.
I forwarded it to Dante.
Then I opened a new document and began listing the things I needed to sort out: my personal bank account, the property records, the clinic foundation I had managed for years, and the legal documents stored in our home office.
I wasn't planning revenge.
I was planning to stop being financially and emotionally invisible.
At the bottom of the list, I typed one final line:
Find out what Dante has been signing in my name.
Because when I opened my email archive, I found three financial approvals I didn't remember authorizing.
May you like
All three carried my electronic signature.
And all three involved Bianca.
