Chapter 7: Elora

Constance left us with a look at her daughter that said she'd regret it.

"Five minutes, Ellie," she said, and the door clicked behind her.

Elora crossed the room and dropped onto the white sofa beside my notebooks.

She crossed her legs and rubbed her knee.

"It aches, you know," she said. "Sometimes. From the crash."

"You walked in on those legs."

"They ache anyway." She patted the cushion. "Sit."

I stayed on my feet. My thumb was still on the phone in my jacket pocket.

"Mother thinks I'm here to scare you," Elora said. "I'm not.

"I wanted to say it to your face, years ago."

"Say what?"

"He was mine first."

I waited.

"Colin," she said. "We dated for a year in college. I was twenty-one. I thought I'd marry him."

"I didn't know that."

"Nobody did. Mother ended it, because he was a nobody from Akron with a degree in fundraising."

Elora's voice stayed soft.

"Two years later, she saw your first patent in the paper, and she gave him a new assignment."

"Me."

"You. She told him to be your friend, and then your husband.

"He did it well, I'll give him that."

I looked at her, and for once I couldn't find the lie in her face.

"He never wanted you, Melina. He wanted to be near whatever you were building, and he wanted me."

"And you let him marry me."

"I let him do a lot of things." She smiled sadly. "That's what family is."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"It's supposed to make you stop." She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.

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