Page 116 of What You left in Me
“You earned that hatred.” My voice rumbles like a storm breaking. “You came into this house the day of her funeral. You wore black. You held Dad’s hand. You pretended to mourn while you were already measuring the curtains. I saw you. How old was I, back then? In my early twenties? You looked me in the eye as if I was something to sweep aside.”
Dad’s face crumples. He looks older than I’ve ever seen him, lines deepening like cracks in a crumbling wall. “Eleanor,” he whispers. “Tell me it isn’t true.”
Her lips part. Close. Part again. She looks at him with something that might almost be pity, then squares her shoulders. “I was in love with you.”
The silence is catastrophic.
Ariane makes a strangled sound, tears streaming down her face. Dad grips the back of his chair like it’s the only thing holding him upright.
“I did it for you too, Ari,” Eleanor turns toward Ariane, eyes flashing. “For us. She was never going to leave, Richard. Never. You would’ve been chained forever. I freed you. I gave you a life. I gave youus.”
Dad staggers, pressing a hand to his chest. Seeing him like this is killing me. This isn’t how I wanted to deal with this news, but it is what it is.
“You killed her,” he rasps, voice shattering. “You killed the woman who…” His throat locks. He can’t finish.
“I gave you everything!” Eleanor screams suddenly, pounding the table so hard the glasses rattle. “Your business... It was nothing before me. Look at our picture-perfect family!”
“Every smile, every rule, every goddamn dress you draped on Ariane was bought with blood,” I hiss.
Ariane sobs, trembling, staring at her mother like she’s seeing a stranger. “Mom…” Her voice is broken glass. “Please. Tell me it’s not true.”
Eleanor doesn’t answer her. She can’t. She locks her gaze on me, eyes blazing with hatred and desperation. “You bastard,” she spits. “Do you think dragging me through the dirt will bring her back? She’s gone. And I’m still here.”
Dad’s body seems to fold in on itself. His shoulders hunch. His eyes go dull, hollow.
And then, Eleanor screams, so loud it rattles the chandelier. “I did it for love! For this family! For you!”
The words echo, grotesque.
Dad pushes back from the table, swaying like a tree about to fall. He doesn’t look at any of us. He doesn’t speak. He just turns and walks out, steps dragging, silence clinging to him like a shroud.
Ariane sobs harder, shoulders shaking, hands pressed over her mouth. I want to go to my dad. To Ariane. But my eyes stay locked on Eleanor, and hers on me.
Chapter 36 – Ariane – Shattered Things
It’s worse, in the light of day.
The house has that haunting quiet that means something terrible happened and all the furniture is trying to be respectful about it. Sunlight lays itself across the runner like it’s auditioning for a brochure about serenity. It’s lying. The walls remember; the carpet remembers; I remember so hard it’s like my skin is a bruise.
I pad down the hall in socks. Somewhere, the grandfather clock clears its throat to announce the hour. Seven o’clock. Too early to be a functional human, too late to crawl back into the dream where none of this happened and my mother was just a difficult woman who loved me in her own brittle way and Finn was just… down the hall. Not a blade.
Richard’s study door is shut.Locked. The brass keyhole glints like an eye that will not blink. I stop there, hand hovering over the wood. I can picture him inside: cardigan, the good chair, the decanter he shouldn’t touch, the stack of letters he’ll pretend to read because staring at paper is easier than staring at the part of your life that snapped in half at dinner. I almost knock but I don’t. I don’t know what I’d say if he opened it…Sorry your wife ordered a murder of the love of your life? Sorry you spent all those years loving me for no reason? Need tea?None of it is going to be helpful. So, I move on.
Mom’s room is open, which feels like a crime scene all by itself. The bed is unmade, the duvet scissored back like she got up in a rush. Nothing on the nightstand, no lipstick like a red coin on a tissue. Her jewelry case sits open and stupidly empty. On the vanity there’s an imprint of her hand in powder, as if she pressed down hard enough to keep from saying something. Istep in but immediately step out because it feels like the room is choking me.
“Miss Ariane?” Maria’s voice is a paper cut behind me. She stands at the corner like a girl who took the wrong bus and is afraid to ask for directions. Her apron string is crooked; her eyes are swollen. “Breakfast?”
No one wants food today. Eating feels disrespectful. I nod anyway because people need routines when the sky falls. “Tea,” I say. “For me. Coffee for Richard. If he’ll take it.”
“And Mrs. Wagner?” Lydia asks, and the name tilts in my ear.
I open my mouth and then close it. “She went out,” I manage. “Last night.” The words clatter between us, hollow. “No one’s… seen her.”
Maria flinches. I’m sure she knows what happened. My mother’s a murderess and I’m a whore sleeping with my stepbrother. What’s new? “Right away, miss,” she says, and disappears down the hall with relief you can feel.
I drift toward the back stairs, In the kitchen, the floor is too bright. The copper pots look smug. The kettle, at least, has the decency to whine. I make tea like a person in a movie about grief: automatic, overfilled, hands steady because they have to be. The first sip scalds my tongue. Good. Something should hurt that isn’t my heart.
I take the mug outside to the stone steps and sit. The lake below is silver and still, pretending to be neutral. The dock’s shadow drifts like a bruise; the old boat house hunkers there like it knows my secrets and would love to tell them if anyone asks politely. Last night reorganizes itself in my head, boxes falling from shelves: