Chapter 8
Claudia tried to turn Elena into the villain next.
I expected it.
People who lose control start redistributing blame.
“She could have told you.”
Elena looked at her.
“Told him what?”
“You knew something was wrong.”
Elena went still.
I watched.
Not accusation.
Question.
“Did you?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That hurt.
But I waited.
She deserved the whole sentence.
“When Ruby was six months old, I found a tiny gold thread inside the blanket seam.”
Claudia’s expression changed.
Elena continued.
“I thought there was something hidden inside.”
“Why didn’t you open it?”
“Because Claudia saw me looking.”
There.
My sister closed her eyes.
“What did she say?”
Elena’s voice shook.
“That the blanket belonged to charity and if I damaged Blackwood property, Ruby and I would lose the cottage.”
I stared at Claudia.
She had controlled the truth with housing.
Basic safety.
Exactly the kind of leverage she claimed made her useful.
Elena continued.
“I stopped touching the seam.”
“Anything else?”
She hesitated.
“Ruby looked like Mrs. Blackwood.”
I had thought the same within hours.
Same eyes.
Same slight crease beside the mouth.
But grief makes resemblance dangerous.
You see dead people everywhere when you miss them enough.
Elena swallowed.
“I told myself I was imagining it.”
Claudia laughed softly.
“Convenient.”
I turned.
“No.”
She stared.
“It was convenient for you.”
I looked back at Elena.
“You suspected.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
“Would you have told me if you knew?”
She started crying.
“I want to say yes.”
Honest.
Painful.
Then:
“But I loved her.”
There.
The answer nobody wants to admit.
If Elena had known with certainty that Ruby was my daughter, telling me might have meant losing the child she believed was hers.
Love can make good people afraid too.
I nodded.
“I understand.”
That surprised her.
Understanding was not absolution.
But there was nothing to absolve yet.
She had been manipulated from the night she woke from anesthesia.
Claudia, however, had known every day.
I turned toward my sister.
“You threatened a grieving mother with homelessness so she wouldn’t inspect a blanket.”
Claudia said nothing.
The story was getting simpler.
May you like
Every justification led back to the same thing.
Control.
