Chapter 3 - CLAIRE VALE
Ainsley refused to speak about Claire at first.
Galen did not threaten her.
He did something she hated more.
He waited.
The engagement dinner had ended hours earlier.
The ballroom was empty.
Candles burned low.
Ainsley sat alone at the long table.
Her ring remained on her finger.
Galen had not asked for it.
Not yet.
“What did you do after finding your mother?”
Ainsley looked toward him.
“Serena had no right to record me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“She was obsessed with fixing people.”
“She was protecting you.”
Ainsley laughed bitterly.
“From what?”
“Yourself.”
That landed.
Ainsley looked away.
Then she finally told him.
Claire Vale had never abandoned her daughter.
Ainsley’s father lied.
Claire suffered from depression and disappeared during a breakdown.
She eventually recovered.
She tried to return.
Ainsley’s father refused to let her near their daughter.
He told Claire that Ainsley hated her.
Then told Ainsley that Claire chose another life.
For fifteen years, mother and daughter believed the other had rejected them.
Serena discovered the truth through Rose.
Rose had quietly remained in contact with Claire.
Why?
Because Rose helped her find somewhere safe during the breakdown.
Galen stared.
His mother had kept another enormous secret.
“Why didn’t Rose tell Ainsley?”
“Claire asked her not to.”
“Why?”
Ainsley laughed without humor.
“Because she was ashamed.”
Of being ill.
Of leaving.
Of believing she had failed.
Then, after Rose died, Serena inherited the responsibility.
Serena eventually convinced Claire to contact Ainsley.
The reunion happened seven years earlier.
Ainsley met her mother in a small church hall.
She expected anger.
Claire apologized.
Ainsley did not.
“I spent fifteen years hating her.”
Ainsley’s voice cracked.
“Then she stood there and asked me to forgive her.”
Galen waited.
“I wanted her to suffer.”
That was the beginning.
Ainsley stayed in contact with Claire.
But privately.
She told everyone her mother remained gone.
Even Serena.
“Serena knew.”
Ainsley shook her head.
“She knew we met once.”
Not that Ainsley continued visiting.
Not that Claire began asking uncomfortable questions.
Especially about Ainsley’s father.
Claire told Ainsley the man had spent years controlling everything around them.
Money.
Friends.
Information.
He decided what Ainsley was allowed to believe.
Ainsley hated him for it.
Then slowly realized she had learned the same behavior.
Galen understood.
“You began controlling information.”
Ainsley’s expression hardened.
“I survived by knowing what other people knew.”
“No.”
“You survived.”
Galen leaned forward.
“Then you kept doing it after you were safe.”
Ainsley looked away.
Claire saw the change too.
She told Ainsley she was becoming like her father.
Ainsley stopped visiting.
Then Claire died.
Alone.
Ainsley had not spoken to her in eight months.
Serena knew.
That was the guilt Ainsley carried into Galen and Serena’s marriage.
The fear of being abandoned became the need to know everything.
The need to be needed.
The need to stand between people before they could choose someone else.
Then Galen asked:
“How did Serena die?”
Ainsley’s face changed.
He saw it immediately.
The official story had never been complicated.
Serena had a heart condition discovered after Eira’s birth.
Eighteen months earlier, she collapsed at the Moretti lake house.
Ainsley found her.
Emergency help arrived too late.
Galen was at a family meeting twenty minutes away.
He had blamed himself ever since.
Ainsley looked down.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because Serena recorded a warning about you three weeks before she died.”
Ainsley stopped breathing for a second.
Galen noticed.
“What happened at the lake house?”
“Nothing.”
“Wrong.”
Ainsley stood.
“I found her on the floor.”
“Before or after she called me?”
Ainsley froze.
Galen had never known Serena called.
He saw the answer before she spoke.
Serena had called him.
His phone showed no record.
Because somebody deleted it.
Galen stood.
“You answered my phone that night.”
Ainsley shook her head.
“No.”
“You were at the family meeting.”
“Yes.”
“Near my coat.”
Silence.
Galen’s voice dropped.
“What did Serena say?”
Ainsley’s eyes filled.
Then she whispered:
“She said she needed you.”
Galen stopped.
“And what did you tell her?”
May you like
Ainsley looked at him.
“I told her you weren’t coming.”
