Montoro penthouse, Delia forced Sofia to scrub grease-covered cookware until her hands were painfully red.
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Chapter 16 / 17
Chapter 16
Years later, Lily asked why Delia once called Sofia a maid.
She remembered fragments.
Children always do.
Sofia answered before I could.
“Because Aunt Delia believed being family gave her the right to control me.”
Lily frowned.
“It doesn’t.”
“No.”
“Even Daddy?”
I almost laughed.
Sofia looked at me.
“Especially Daddy.”
Fair.
Lily smiled.
Good.
That was the family lesson I wanted preserved.
Not who sits above whom.
Where authority stops.
Where personhood begins.
She asked:
“Was Grandma Lucia a maid too?”
Sofia looked at me.
Hard question.
“No.”
I said.
“But people treated her like she had to serve to deserve belonging.”
Lily thought.
“That’s stupid.”
May you like
Again.
Children save us paragraphs.
