His Lifelong Pleas Got Nothing novel · Chapter 20 of 32

Chapter 20: The Guest Wing

The housekeeper opened the Huntington front door before Sam and I reached the top step.

She did not look at us.

"Mrs. Huntington is in the guest wing," she said. "She says you know the way."

I did.

It was the room at the end of the east hall, the one with the window seat and the blue wallpaper, where I had been put to bed after my first loss.

I had never wondered why I was moved there.

Now I knew that it was where my daughter had been born.

Sam took my hand at the door, and I let him hold it for a second.

Then I let go and went in alone, because I had told myself I would.

My mother sat in the wing chair by the window, in her sunroom blanket, with a cup of tea on the little table beside her.

She looked small.

Odile stood behind her with one hand resting on the chair back.

"Tillie," my mother said, brightening. "Look. Mrs. Huntington took me for a drive."

"Hi, Mom."

"We saw the water. It was so blue."

I crossed the room and knelt in front of her and took both her hands.

They were warm.

She was safe, and she was not frightened, and that made my own anger harder to hold.

"You've had a long morning," Odile said above us. "I thought she should be somewhere comfortable, since Sunrise House is going to be difficult for her."

"You signed her out."

"As family. Which is what I am."

"You took her out of her bed without telling me."

"I took her to a room with a view." Odile's voice was perfectly calm. "I can keep her in it. Her care, her nurses, a room with a garden. For the rest of her life, Matilda, and I will never mention her again."

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