Chapter 6
Alaric confronted his mother in Monica’s office.
Not at the mansion.
Not privately.
Cordelia arrived with Gregory Sloane.
That confirmed enough.
Alaric placed the Hawthorne Ridge reservation on the table.
“What is this?”
Cordelia barely glanced at it.
“A school.”
“For Bram.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he needs independence.”
“He is six.”
“That is when children learn.”
Elowen sat beside Monica.
She said nothing.
Cordelia looked at her.
“You smother him.”
Elowen’s expression hardened.
Monica quietly touched her sleeve.
Cordelia continued.
“You make every room bend around his disability.”
Alaric’s voice dropped.
“The house is supposed to bend around his needs.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
“No.”
Cordelia shook her head.
“You have redesigned staircases. Cars. Vacations. Restaurants. Holidays. Every family event becomes about access.”
Alaric stared at her.
“Yes.”
“That is not normal.”
“No.”
His voice became colder.
“It is accommodation.”
Cordelia laughed bitterly.
“You say that because you are never the one arranging it.”
Elowen finally spoke.
“So you decided the solution was to remove him.”
“I decided he needs a place designed for him.”
“He already has one.”
“Your house?”
“Yes.”
Cordelia looked at Alaric.
“Your father would never have allowed the family to reorganize around one child.”
Alaric leaned back.
“My father is dead.”
The words landed hard.
Cordelia turned to Sloane.
He did not rescue her.
Alaric pushed the guardianship invoice forward.
“Did you consult him about taking decision-making authority over Bram?”
Sloane intervened.
“We will not discuss legal advice.”
Cordelia did not need to.
Her face answered enough.
Then she said:
“I was preparing in case Elowen became unsafe.”
Elowen stared.
“Unsafe?”
“You kicked me.”
“At a wedding you planned this before.”
Cordelia’s mouth tightened.
“That only proved I was right.”
Monica immediately wrote down the sentence.
Cordelia realized what she had said.
Too late.
Alaric leaned forward.
“What did it prove?”
No answer.
“What exactly did my wife kicking you prove?”
Cordelia stood.
“This meeting is done.”
Alaric did not stop her.
After she left, Monica looked at Elowen.
“She just tied the incident to a preexisting theory.”
Elowen whispered:
“She wanted me to react.”
“Yes.”
Finally, Monica said yes.
May you like
“But we still need to know whether that reaction was the plan or merely something Cordelia later exploited.”
That distinction would matter in Part 10.
