Chapter 7
Clara Meyers was seven.
Daughter of a Waverly-affiliated chauffeur who died two years earlier.
Her mother, Denise, still worked occasional events.
I knew her face.
Not her life.
That bothered me.
Clara had been brought to the Hawthorne house after Benedict died.
Not by Benedict.
By Rupert.
So the archive was no longer grief support in someone else’s distorted philosophy.
Rupert had continued independently.
Why?
He answered after an hour.
“Isadora was getting worse.”
She looked at him in disbelief.
“You brought Clara?”
He nodded.
“I thought if she saw an older Emily…”
There.
Forward this time.
Show Isadora the daughter as she might have lived.
Not restart childhood.
Continue it.
Isadora began crying.
“You told me Clara was Benedict’s idea.”
“It was easier.”
I stared at Rupert.
“You used a dead man as permission.”
He shrugged weakly.
“I was trying to keep my wife alive.”
That mattered.
Explanation.
Not absolution.
Isadora had attempted suicide once after Emily died.
Rupert found her.
Saved her.
After that, he became terrified of anything that triggered deep grief.
Whenever Isadora began collapsing, he found a girl.
A dress.
A memory.
A substitute.
Temporary relief.
He reinforced the very thing destroying her because he feared the alternative.
Love turning into maintenance of delusion.
“What happened to Clara?”
“She refused.”
“Then?”
“I sent her home.”
Good.
“At least?”
He flinched.
There was more.
“Her mother lost work.”
My face hardened.
He had punished refusal economically.
Not consciously, he claimed.
He simply “couldn’t have Denise around after what happened.”
Same effect.
Clara lost access to the family because she would not perform Emily.
That was coercion.
I asked:
“Isadora, did you know?”
“No.”
I believed her.
Important.
She had done terrible things herself.
Not every terrible thing.
Then Isadora looked at Rupert.
“You kept feeding this.”
He stared.
“I kept you alive.”
She whispered:
“No.”
Then:
“You kept me sick enough to need you.”
That landed harder than anything I could say.
May you like
Rupert’s face collapsed.
Maybe he had never considered the difference.
