Chapter 6
The blue room did contain wedding preparations.
Just not flowers.
Two packed suitcases stood beside the bed.
One belonged to my mother.
One belonged to Milo.
I recognized my son’s dinosaur pajamas folded on top.
My mother’s medications sat inside another case.
I became very quiet.
Marian whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Claribel remained in the doorway.
I opened the wardrobe.
Milo’s winter coats.
Mother’s scarves.
Shoes.
Books.
Enough belongings for weeks.
Not a weekend.
“Where were they going?”
Claribel said:
“Nowhere yet.”
“Wrong answer.”
She exhaled.
“The lake house.”
Harcourt owned an estate three hours north.
Quiet.
Remote.
Beautiful.
Barely used.
Claribel had arranged transportation for the morning after our wedding.
Mother would go first.
For “recovery.”
Milo three days later.
For “fresh air and tutoring.”
“How long?”
“A few weeks.”
I looked at the amount packed.
“No.”
Silence.
“How long?”
Claribel’s face tightened.
“Until we adjusted.”
There.
We.
Not them.
Us.
Our new marriage needed space.
Mother’s needs.
Milo’s presence.
Staff loyalty.
All considered obstacles to adjustment.
“You planned to empty my house.”
She flinched.
“I planned to give us privacy.”
“Milo lives here.”
“So would we.”
“He is my son.”
“And I was supposed to become your wife.”
As though those positions competed.
That was the heart.
Claribel did not merely dislike Milo’s behavior.
She believed love had rank.
Wife should outrank son.
Fiancée should outrank mother.
Anyone receiving my attention became subtraction from her.
She stepped closer.
“You don’t know what it’s like being fourth in your own engagement.”
“Fourth?”
“Your son.”
A finger.
“Your mother.”
Another.
“Your organization.”
Another.
“Then me.”
She looked genuinely wounded.
That did not make her harmless.
I looked at Milo’s packed suitcase.
“You dealt with feeling fourth by planning to remove everyone ahead of you.”
Claribel whispered:
“I thought once they were gone, you’d finally choose me.”
There it was.
Not succession.
Not money.
Not family politics.
Something simpler.
May you like
And because it was simpler, somehow uglier.
She wanted proof of love measured by absence.
