Spoiled by Four Billionaires novel · Chapter 10 of 24
Chapter 10: The Candle
Cullen didn't explain the photograph that night.
He picked up the glass, and put it on the desk, and said, "Come to the fair with me on Saturday. I'll tell you everything there."
"Why not now?"
"Because it should be said where it happened."
I looked at his wet shoes and his tired face.
I had known for ten minutes that I was going to say yes.
"Saturday," I said.
He nodded.
The Ardmore anniversary dinner was Friday night.
I didn't know there was such a thing until Linus told me at breakfast.
"It's the day," he said, turning a pancake with great precision. "Nineteen years ago tomorrow. Mom lights a candle. We eat her pot roast. We don't talk much."
"Can I come?"
"You live here."
"I live in a room with a rabbit," I said. "I'm not sure that's the same."
"It's the same," Linus said, and put the pancake on my plate.
On Friday, the dining room was lit with candles.
Our mother sat at the head, in a gray dress, with her hands folded.
Alister, Linus and Bram were at her right in dark suits.
Cullen sat beside me.
On the sideboard stood a single white candle in a silver holder, and beside it, the frame with the yellow raincoat photo.
My mother stood and struck a match.
Her hand trembled, but the flame caught.
"For Vanessa," she said. "Who was lost. Who is home."
Nobody spoke.
I wanted to cry and also to laugh, because the candle had burned for nineteen years and now I sat at the table where it was lit.
"I have to say something," our mother said, and put the match down. "I've said it every year to an empty chair. I'll say it once to you."
"Mom," said Alister.
"Let me."
She looked straight at me, and her eyes were clear.
"The day you were lost, a woman was holding your hand. Your nanny. She was thirty-one, and she loved you, and she lost you in a crowd."
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