Chapter 7
I asked Cordelia one question privately.
“Why Beatrix?”
Not politically.
Personally.
She stared at the table.
For years, Cordelia had been the woman closest to my household.
My cousin.
Amelia’s friend before becoming mine.
She organized birthdays.
Family dinners.
Hospital visits.
She knew where everything belonged.
Then Beatrix was born.
That changed the center.
Then Amelia got sick.
That changed it again.
Cordelia became useful.
Very useful.
And apparently she mistook usefulness for permanence.
After Amelia died, she expected me to depend on her.
I did.
For three months.
Then less.
Because I learned.
Because Beatrix and I found our own rhythms.
Because grief stopped requiring a hostess.
Cordelia experienced that as rejection.
“You stopped calling.”
Her voice was small.
“I was raising my daughter.”
“I was family.”
“You still are.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“I became someone invited.”
There.
The wound.
Not excuse.
Truth.
Then Beatrix’s birthdays became worse for her.
Each one centered Amelia’s memory.
The cake tradition.
The rabbit.
The paper crown style Amelia chose.
A dead woman remaining emotionally present.
Cordelia hated competing with someone who could not disappoint anyone anymore.
So she targeted symbols.
The crown.
The rabbit.
The wish.
Destroying them felt like reducing Amelia’s hold.
That was the personal layer.
Percival gave her political language for a private resentment.
“Beatrix didn’t replace you.”
Cordelia laughed bitterly.
“She replaced everyone.”
“No.”
I kept my voice low.
“She became my child.”
Cordelia looked away.
That distinction had never settled in her.
She thought love was a limited table.
One person moves closer.
Someone else must be pushed back.
Exactly the philosophy behind the Second Table.
No wonder it suited her.
Then she whispered:
“I never meant to hurt her.”
I looked at the cake.
The torn crown.
The crushed rabbit seam.
“She stretched both hands for something comforting while you held it above her and laughed.”
Silence.
“Intent doesn’t get to rewrite that.”
May you like
She started crying.
I did not.
