Slapping Her Out of Her Delusion novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Not Under This Roof
My mother's study smelled of lavender and cold ash.
She didn't ask me to sit, and she didn't sit herself.
She stood at the window with her back to me and her hands folded at her waist.
"What did Gwen mean?" I asked. "Not a real Aldercott."
"She meant nothing. She's an overwrought girl who has built a fantasy out of a funeral."
"You went white at the table."
"I was embarrassed. You humiliated a guest."
"Mother."
She turned around.
Her face was composed again, and that frightened me more than the trembling had.
"I have a proposal," she said. "Florence has been very kind to you. I will pay for an apartment there, and an allowance of four thousand dollars a month, for as long as you stay."
"In exchange for what?"
"You will sign a short letter before Friday, saying you have no objection to whatever your father's will provides."
"Whatever it provides."
"Whatever it provides."
I looked at the woman who had taught me to hold my fork.
"You know what's in it."
"I know that your father loved you."
"That isn't what I asked."
"It's what I'm answering." Her voice stayed perfectly level. "Take the money, Lydia. Take the flat. Go, and be happy somewhere that isn't here."
"No."
"You are a stubborn, difficult girl."
"I know," I said. "He liked that about me."
I left her standing under the lamp.
On the way out I passed the dinner table, where Gwen sat with her head in her hands, sobbing prettily to three partners and Preston.
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