The Dragon Mother Returns: Taking Back Everything That Belongs to My Daughter novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Impostor

Marguerite refuses to leave her own lawn while the guests film, finds Clara's staff room, and is taken away by the police Lionel called.

Nobody on the lawn breathed.

Then Paisley rested her cheek on Clara's shoulder, soft as a kitten.

"She's been through so much," she told the front row. "Please. Just go."

I looked at my daughter's wrist.

Paisley's thumb was still pressed into the bruise.

"Take your hand off her," I said.

Paisley's eyes went huge and wet.

She lifted her hand away slowly.

A woman in the second row was filming. So was the man beside her.

The two security men tried again. One went left around Matthias, and one went right.

Matthias didn't unfold his arms.

He took one step sideways, and the man on the right walked straight into his chest and bounced off.

"Sorry," Matthias said. "I am very big. People forget."

Somebody laughed and turned it into a cough.

Lionel's jaw worked. "Who is this man?"

"The man who dug me out of the snow," I said. "Where were you, Lionel?"

"Here." His voice cracked again, beautifully. "Burying my wife."

"You were quick about it."

Over by the catering tent, a woman in a gray dress was holding a silver coffee pot.

Sixty years old. Gray bun. Thirty years in my family's kitchen.

She had made every one of Clara's birthday cakes, including the ones I missed.

She was staring at me.

Her mouth was open, and the coffee pot was tipping, and hot coffee was running down onto the grass.

"Back to the kitchen," Lionel told her, without turning around.

She didn't move.

I knew that look. She was counting what it would cost the girl if she spoke.

She closed her mouth, set the pot down on a table and walked into the house.

"This memorial is over," Lionel announced. "Thank you all for coming. There's food in the tent."

Nobody went to the tent.

At the end of the front row there was one empty chair, with a little card on it that said FAMILY.

I sat down in it.

I crossed my legs.

"Call the police," I said. "I'd like them to take my fingerprints. I'm sure you would too."

Lionel smiled at the guests.

"They're already on their way."

"Good."

Matthias sat down next to me, and the chair creaked.

"Is this how funerals go in America?" he murmured.

"Only the good ones."

Paisley tugged at Clara's apron string. "Clara. Ice. Now. Everything's warm."

My daughter turned and walked toward the house with the tray.

She didn't look back.

I got up and followed her.

"Marguerite," Matthias said.

"Two minutes."

I went in through the side door.

The cook was at the stove. She saw me and dropped a spoon.

I didn't stop.

Off the back of the kitchen there was a little room my grandmother had built for a live-in maid in 1958.

The door was open.

There was a narrow cot in there now, with a gray blanket pulled tight.

A space heater. A plastic bucket with rubber gloves hung over the side. A Yale sweatshirt folded on a chair.

Taped to the wall was a sheet of pink paper in round, girlish handwriting.

6:00 POOL. 7:30 P's COFFEE (oat, NOT almond). 9:00 LAUNDRY. 2:00 DRIVE P. 7:00 SERVE DINNER.

At the bottom someone had drawn a smiley face.

On the pillow lay a black sketchbook.

I knew it. I bought it for her at the art store on Greenwich Avenue the day before I flew out.

It was the only thing I bought her that whole Christmas.

I opened it.

Whales, mostly. A humpback rolling. The tail of a right whale, every barnacle drawn.

Then the private terminal at Westchester.

A woman walking away across the tarmac in a black coat, small, from behind.

Under it, in pencil: Jan 6.

I didn't hear her come in.

The sketchbook was pulled out of my hands.

Clara held it against her chest with both arms.

Up close she was thinner than I'd ever seen her. There was a cut on her thumb, and charcoal ground into the side of her hand.

"Baby," I said.

She stared at the floor between us.

"You sleep in here?"

Nothing.

"Who wrote that schedule?"

Her eyes moved, once, to the pink paper.

Then the kitchen filled up behind her.

Lionel. Paisley, with her phone held up and recording. And two police officers from the Greenwich department, a man and a woman, hats in their hands like they were sorry about the funeral.

"That's her," Lionel said. "She's harassing my stepdaughter in her own room."

"Her room," I said. "It's a broom closet."

"Ma'am," the woman officer said. "We've had a complaint of trespass. I need you to come outside with us."

"This is my house."

"Then that'll get sorted out."

I looked at Clara.

She was still holding the sketchbook. Her knuckles were white on the cover.

"I'll be back," I told her.

Paisley laughed out loud. Then she covered her mouth, delighted with herself.

I walked out with the officers.

On the lawn, two hundred people stood up to watch.

Matthias came to meet me.

I took the Treasury Card and my grandmother's pearls out of my coat pocket and pressed them into his big scarred hand.

"Keep these," I said. "Whatever happens."

He closed his fist around them.

"I will be outside," he said. "Wherever they take you, I am outside."

The male officer touched my elbow.

"Ma'am. Hands behind your back, please."

The cuffs were cold.

I looked up at the house, and in the little window beside the kitchen door, I saw my daughter's face.

Then they put me in the car.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend