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“I am concerned for you, my girl.”

Well, and therein lay the surprise.

“Mother—”

“Do not ‘mother’ me, Magdalene!” Now concern was laced with actual distress, and Magdalene decided it must be serious, since Candace hardly ever exhibited either of these emotions. Well, one time, when a seamstress had taken off too much of the hem of her vintage Dior gown and Magdalene had thought Candace would faint in a fit of ‘the vapors’.

They were silent for a while, and for once, Magdalene got the sense that the quiet was companionable rather than adverse.

“They are all gunning for you, my girl.” Candace eventually breathed out the sentence, and the distress rang loud and clear despite her actually whispering. “The Old Dragonettes! The bored housewives, the damn socialites, all these useless people who never gave two shits about that damned dump of a school. Suddenly, at every party, at every ridiculous event, all they talk is about how you’re destroying their precious fucking pile of mossy stones. And how they’ll make you pay. I damn near ripped Babette Donald’s face off!”

Well, Candace swearing? Magdalene actually blinked, taken aback.

“Mom…” The rare appellation took the wind out of Candace’s sails, and she quieted down as Magdalene suspected she would.

“Last time you called me ‘mom’, you were nineteen, and I found you crying in your room over that bitch, Dolores Evergreen Lopez.” Magdalene suppressed a gasp. Candace's voice, still barely above a whisper, held all the malice Magdalene knew her to be capable of. But it was the words themselves that took her aback. Her mother knew about Dolores? And ‘that bitch?’

“Mom, what are you talking about? She was your best friend—”

The answer was so swift and vehement, it rocked Magdalene to the core.

“She seduced my daughter under my own roof. And then she dumped you. If you think I would have let her do either of those things and not drown her in a fucking pool of fucking consequences, Magdalene, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Magdalene barely had time to process what she was hearing.

“Mom… but she left Boston. Last I heard, she was in Mississippi, of all places.”

Candace tsked, and Magdalene could just picture her polishing her nails on her blouse, the characteristic pause telling.

“My girl, making sure she was never again received in any society on the East or West Coast, was a very small price for her to pay for breaking your heart.”

The matter-of-fact tone, the nonchalance of the delivery, yet the weight of the world in those words. A world where her mother had not only known, seen, but also destroyed a woman for hurting Magdalene. Her fingers were gripping the windowsill so hard, her knuckles had turned white. She took a steadying breath, trying to calm her racing heart. Would wonders never cease?

“You ruined Dolores Evergreen…” She heard the surprise and bewilderment in her own voice. Her mother must have, too, because there was a heavy sigh, followed by more silence, before Candace spoke again.

“I’d have ruined her ten times over, Magdalene, if I could have spared you the pain. You were so heartbroken.”

“You sent me to Paris alone! Again!”

“And you had a nice trip! Don’t tell me you wanted me to join you? You were eighteen, old enough. This time, you didn’t need a nanny to go with you. And I was getting married to… Maurice?” The question mark at the end of her mother’s retort was so loud, Magdalene barked out a laugh. Even with a gun to her head, she wouldn’t be able to remember which husband her mother was talking about, and it was pretty clear Candace herself wasn’t sure either.

“Well, mom, I don’t know what to say…”

“I don’t need you to speak, Magdalene!” More tsks, some mumbled swearing, and another heavy sigh followed. “Just be careful. I don’t care about that pile of rocks. I care about you being safe, and those people are damn zealots. Religious fanatics. Joel Tullinger thinks he is some kind of second coming. I don’t know how that’s possible, since his wife has no idea what coming even means.”

A shocked pause followed, then both of them burst into laughter.

“Mom!”

“Nothing but the truth, my girl. But he is a zealot, and he and his ilk want us to return to their puritan roots. Also, Stanton better think twice before he starts spouting his 17th century rhetoric about a woman’s place as well. I have already donated to his opponent. And I will go canvassing door to door if I have to, but he will not be governor again.”

The image of her mother, in her four-inch heels—her mother who had never walked further than to her town car or the conservatory at the far recesses of whatever current estate—going door to door and cursing Alden, almost made Magdalene erupt into another round of laughter. The entire conversation was so out-of-character, so surprisingly warm and supportive, Magdalene wanted to pinch herself.

“I know you probably have to go.” Absolutely unreal, since when did her mother worry about keeping someone on the phone? “And I’d have come to that cursed island for your first day, my girl, but I have my manicure and massage in a few hours, and Shawn has amazing hands. You understand. Be careful now.”

The phone disconnected, and Magdalene found herself grinning like a fool. Now this was the Candace she knew, screwing her massage therapist. Nonetheless, the revelation that her mother had ruined her best friend’s life for hurting Magdalene, and the knowledge that she was concerned enough to most certainly go after Alden if this entire thing went south today, had been surprising. And important.

Magdalene had placed her hand over her sternum, the emptiness slowly filling as she’d felt warmth spread through her limbs.