Part 9
Owen looked down at her.
Maren continued, her voice breaking now. “She was always everywhere. In the furniture. In the staff. In the way you spoke to me like I was temporary. I had spent years being the friend, the helper, the person who cleaned up after everyone else. Then she died, and I thought maybe there would finally be room for me.”
Everett’s face was unreadable.
“And Lila?” he asked.
Maren wiped beneath one eye with the side of her finger. “Lila hated me.”
“She was grieving.”
“She made every room feel like a courtroom.”
“She was grieving.”
“She never wanted me here.”
“No,” Everett said. “She did not.”
Maren flinched.
“But that did not give you permission to make her doubt herself.”
“I did not want to hurt her.”
“You wanted her quiet.”
Maren looked away.
That was enough.
Everett moved to the section of wall near the doors. There was no visible handle, only a narrow seam in the molding that Lila had never noticed. He pressed his thumb against a carved rosette.
A panel released with a soft click.
Inside was a shallow compartment.
There was a yellow notebook.
Lila saw it from the floor and stopped breathing for a second.
Everett took it out.
The cover was worn at the corners. Her mother had written Helena Voss in the lower right corner in the same broad impatient hand.
Maren’s face crumpled.
“I did not know what else to do,” she said.
Everett looked at the notebook.
“You could have given it to me.”
“You would have defended her.”
“Yes.”
“That was exactly what I was afraid of.”
Everett looked at her for a long time.
Then he said, “You should have been.”
He returned to the sitting room with the notebook in his hands.
Lila pushed herself up slightly, but Owen put a hand near her shoulder without touching her.
“Slow,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You fell.”
“I slipped.”
“You fell.”
She looked at him.
He did not look away.
For years, Owen had softened every hard fact until it could fit inside the family. Tonight, he was refusing to do it.
She lay back down.
Everett knelt again beside her and held out the notebook.
Lila did not take it immediately.
“You read it,” she said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is yours.”
The answer made something in her chest hurt.
She took the notebook.
The pages smelled faintly of dust and old paper. Her mother’s handwriting filled them in blue ink. There were lists, numbers, names. Notes about the foundation. Notes about contracts. Notes about Maren’s access to accounts. Notes about Everett’s absences.
Then, toward the back, there were pages addressed to Lila.
Not letters exactly. More like fragments.
If you are reading this, I waited too long to tell you how much I noticed.
If someone tells you grief makes you unreliable, ask them what they gain by making you doubt yourself.
Do not let anyone turn your fear into proof that you are wrong.
Lila could not read any farther.
The words blurred.
She pressed the notebook against her chest.
Everett watched her. “I am sorry.”
She shook her head.
“I know,” he said. “Sorry is too small.”
“Yes.”
“I do not know the right word.”
“There isn’t one.”
He nodded.
Maren sank slowly into the dark lounge chair. Her emerald necklace lay crooked against her throat now. She looked at no one.
Owen picked up the folder from the floor and began sorting through the pages. His hands moved carefully, almost methodically.
“What are you doing?” Maren asked.
“Putting them in order.”
“For what?”
“So no one can say later that nothing happened.”
Maren looked at him.
He did not look back.
Everett’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
The sound made all four of them flinch.
He took it out.
The screen lit his face briefly, but he did not answer. He turned it over and set it on the floor beside him.
Lila watched him do it.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Counsel.”
“You told them we were meeting.”
“Yes.”
“And they know about the transfer?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers tightened around the notebook.
“Call them.”
Everett looked at her.
“Lila, you just said—”
“I said no doctors. No police. I did not say no lawyers.”
Owen looked up.
Maren stood from the chair. “You cannot make decisions right now.”
Lila turned her head slowly.
“Watch me.”
Maren went still.
Everett reached for the phone but did not dial.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked.
The question should not have been difficult. But it was. Lila had spent years being told what would happen next. People had made decisions around her until asking her what she wanted felt almost unfamiliar.
May you like
She looked at the notebook.
Then at the forged papers.
