Chapter 12
Lenora asked to meet Verity.
Verity said no.
Good.
Three months later, Lenora asked again.
Verity said maybe.
Another month.
Yes.
They met in a garden away from the estate.
Neutral.
I did not attend.
Neither did Adrian.
That mattered.
Two women.
No husbands.
No bosses.
No fathers.
Verity later told me only because she wanted to.
Lenora brought no gift.
Smart.
She said:
“I need you to know I never asked for August.”
Verity answered:
“I know.”
Then silence.
Lenora cried.
Verity did not comfort her immediately.
Also fair.
Eventually Lenora spoke about Benjamin.
His tiny fingers.
The blanket.
The way everyone stopped saying his name after the funeral because they thought mentioning him hurt.
So grief became a room no one entered.
Cedric saw the silence and mistook it for instability.
Then filled it with a plan.
Verity told her about the six days she believed August was dead.
How milk came in for a baby she thought she would never hold.
How every sound in the corridor made her hope and then hate herself for hoping.
No graphic detail.
Just truth.
Lenora listened.
At the end she said:
“Our grief should never have touched like this.”
Verity answered:
“It didn’t.”
Then:
“Your father pushed them together.”
Exactly.
Separate losses.
Forced into one transaction.
That distinction helped both women.
They did not become friends.
I liked that.
Stories always want victims to bond because it feels tidy.
Life is allowed to remain specific.
Lenora went home to Adrian.
Verity went home to August.
May you like
Each kept her own grief.
No exchange.
