Chapter 3 - The Confession in the Study
Then the office door opened. No knock. Only one person in the house did that. Mother rolled inside. A silk ivory robe hung loosely around her shoulders. Her shaved head somehow made her eyes look larger. Sharper. Clara immediately moved toward her.
“Mrs. Hale, you should be resting.”
“Oh, don't start.” Mother positioned her wheelchair between us. Her gaze landed on me. “What are you doing?”
“Talking.”
“You interrogate people for a living, Bennett. Don't insult me by calling it talking.”
I folded my arms. Mother looked toward Clara. “That girl has treated me more like family than anyone in this house.”
My chest tightened. “Mother.”
“It's true.”
“I've given you the best care money can buy.”
Her expression hardened. “Exactly.”
Silence. “You gave me money.”
I looked away. “Clara gave me her time.”
There are moments when a man hears a sentence he knows will live inside him longer than the person who said it. That was one of mine. I had no answer.
Mother reached for Clara's hand. Clara reluctantly stepped closer. “If you fire her,” Mother said, “I'm leaving with her.”
Clara's eyes widened. “Mrs. Hale—”
“No one's being fired.” Mother stared at me another few seconds. I thought that ended it. It didn't. Her grip tightened around Clara's hand. “There is something you need to know.”
Clara went pale. “Mrs. Hale, please.”
“No.”
“Please don't do this now.”
“He should've been told years ago.”
My entire body became still. “Years ago?”
Clara looked like she wanted to disappear. Mother looked directly into my eyes. For the first time, I saw fear in hers. Not fear of cancer. Fear of me.
“Lock the door, Bennett.”
I did. Mother waited until the latch clicked. Then she said the words that cracked open everything I thought I knew about the Hale family.
“Clara Reed didn't come into this house by accident.”
I looked at Clara. She couldn't meet my eyes. Mother swallowed. “Her mother was named Rose Reed.”
The name meant nothing at first. Then it did. A memory. An argument overheard when I was thirteen. My father shouting in his study. My mother crying. A woman's name. Rose.
My pulse slowed. Dangerously. “Who was she?”
Mother closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were wet. “Someone your father loved.”
Clara whispered, “Please.”
But Mother continued. “Twenty-eight years ago, Rose gave birth to a daughter.”
I looked at Clara. No.
Mother's next words came quietly. But they hit harder than any gunshot I had ever heard. “Your father's daughter, Bennett.”
The entire room disappeared. Clara finally looked at me. And in her frightened hazel-brown eyes, I saw something I had never noticed before. My father's eyes.
May you like
Mother's voice trembled. “Clara is your sister.”
And suddenly I understood why Clara Reed had really entered my home. But I did not yet understand the most dangerous part. Someone else had known the truth for twenty-eight years. And according to my mother, that person was still alive.
