Chapter 10
Elaine came into the meeting furious.
“You went around me.”
I almost smiled.
“Yes.”
She stared.
I gestured toward Samuel and Miles.
“They have concerns.”
She looked pleased.
“For about two seconds.”
Then Samuel spoke.
“Not yours.”
Her face changed.
He explained his proposal.
No hereditary seats.
No automatic role for Andrew.
No authority over Lucy.
No family-control clause.
Elaine laughed.
“Then it’s useless.”
There.
Silence.
Everyone heard it.
She did not want oversight.
She wanted leverage.
Andrew looked at his mother.
“You said the point was balance.”
“It is.”
“For who?”
She hesitated.
Too long.
Andrew’s face hardened.
“For me?”
No answer.
“For you?”
Elaine stared.
There.
The marriage resentment she had been feeding him suddenly turned toward its source.
She needed his wounded pride because it legitimized her return to influence.
I said nothing.
Let them see each other.
Andrew asked:
“Did you ever intend me to have real authority?”
Elaine snapped:
“You would have had what you earned.”
He laughed once.
Bitter.
“You mean what you gave.”
That was the fracture.
Not between husband and wife.
Mother and son.
The alliance had depended on Andrew believing Elaine was restoring what I denied him.
Now he saw she planned to remain above him too.
I looked at her.
“You shaved Lucy for a performance.”
Elaine’s expression hardened.
“She needed correction.”
Andrew turned.
“No.”
First time.
Clear.
He continued.
“She needed to say what you wanted.”
Elaine looked at him with contempt.
“You’re weak.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
That word.
There it was.
The weapon beneath everything.
Lucy cried?
Weak.
Andrew hesitated?
Weak.
Anyone who resisted Elaine’s control?
May you like
Weak.
She had built an entire family philosophy around fear of that word.
