Chapter 14 - Eleanor tells the truth about Samantha
My mother asked to speak with Aubrielle.
I said:
“Not alone.”
Eleanor accepted.
We drove to lake house.
She sat with Aubrielle on porch.
“I knew your mommy.”
Aubrielle nodded.
“Daddy has pictures.”
“I was not always kind to her.”
I watched Aubrielle’s face.
Eleanor continued:
“I thought she and your daddy were too young and too different. I said things I should not have said.”
“Did you hate her?”
“No.”
“Marietta says you did.”
“I disliked some choices. That is not the same as hating a person.”
Then:
“And none of it had anything to do with how much you belong to me.”
Aubrielle asked:
“Am I favorite?”
My mother laughed.
“I have learned not to answer that question.”
Good.
Then:
“Do Claire and me get same?”
May you like
“Not always the same things. But neither of you is more real.”
That was the sentence Marietta had spent years preventing.
