The Dragon Mother Returns: Taking Back Everything That Belongs to My Daughter novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Home Early

"Moving it where?" I said.

"Friday. Nine in the morning. First thing." Clara was talking fast and low. "The judge's hearing about you is Friday at two. He said, 'By two o'clock it's done and she can be as alive as she likes.'"

Matthias had stopped buttoning his shirt.

"And the buyer's coming at nine thirty. To sign. In the same room."

"What else?"

"He said I'll sit next to him and smile." Her voice wobbled. "He said, 'The girl does what she's told.'"

"Clara. Where are you right now?"

"Behind the pool house. With the hose on, so he can't hear."

"Go inside. Don't let him see your face."

"I'm not stupid, Mom."

"I know you're not. I'll be home tomorrow."

There was a little silence on the line.

"You always say that," she said.

"I'm already packing."

I was. Matthias had my bag open on the bed and was throwing my things into it, folded badly.

His brother drove us down the mountain at midnight with the dog in the back, and put us on the first train to Geneva.

We landed at JFK on Wednesday morning.

The housekeeper let us in through the kitchen at eleven that night.

Lionel was in the city, at a dinner with the buyer.

Paisley had gone to a party in the Hamptons and posted forty photos of it.

"She won't be back before three," the housekeeper said. "She never is."

Matthias stayed in her cottage by the gate, at her window, with the car keys in his pocket.

"If headlights come," he said, "I call. You run. Do not argue with me about running."

"I never run."

"Tonight you learn."

Clara was waiting in the kitchen in her Yale sweatshirt, barefoot, with her sketchbook and a bowl of cereal.

She looked at me across the island.

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