Chapter 7 - Ask Your Mother
Noah arrived just before ten.
Arthur had called him in panic, though I doubt he understood why. Perhaps some part of him still believed his son could witness the scene and make me look cruel. Perhaps he wanted another audience for his shock.
Noah walked in wearing a dark overcoat, twenty-two now, taller than Arthur, with Clara’s eyes and Eleanor’s guarded mouth. He stopped when he saw the emptied room.
“What happened?”
Eleanor moved first.
“Rebecca has decided to punish this family.”
I took the old photograph from the envelope and placed it on the dining table.
“No,” I said. “I’ve decided to stop letting you narrate it.”
Noah looked at the photo.
His face changed when he saw Clara.
Then it changed again when he saw me beside her.
“Why are you in this?”
“I met your mother once at a hospital fundraiser,” I said. “I didn’t know who she was then.”
He turned the photograph over.
Rebecca believed me.
His jaw tightened.
“What does that mean?”
Eleanor’s voice became sharp. “Old grief makes people dramatic. Your mother was unstable near the end.”
“No,” I said.
One word.
Quiet enough to make everyone listen.
I slid the letter toward Noah, still sealed in a protective sleeve.
“Your mother wrote this for you. Eleanor hid enough of her things that it almost disappeared too. It explains what she was documenting before she died.”
Arthur stood slowly.
“Rebecca, what is this?”
“The part your mother erased.”
Noah’s hands shook when he picked up the letter.
Eleanor stepped forward. “You have no right.”
Noah looked at her then.
Not angry yet.
Worse.
Awake.
“You told me she wanted to leave me.”
Eleanor said nothing.
“You told me Rebecca made Dad take her pictures down.”
Still nothing.
Noah turned to Arthur.
“Did you know?”
Arthur looked at the floor.
That was answer enough.
I did not stay to watch the whole family collapse.
Some truths deserve witnesses.
May you like
Others deserve oxygen.
So I picked up my handbag and walked toward the door.
