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“Right, you’re right. But now, are you saying we should let Portia have Daniel without interceding?”
“I think you should tell her what you feel and what you know…carefully,” she warned. “You don’t want to lose her. But then, yes. It’s her decision. This life is her bed to make and lie in.”
“And what about the money?”
“As always, I’ll defer to you on that. Though, I will say your father put a caveat on the money that she can’t have it if she gets involved with an unsavory character.”
“So now you’re saying I should use the money as a weapon to get her to do what I want.”
She shrugged, but then said, “It certainly would be a test of how they feel about each other, both of them, if suddenly that wasn’t part of the equation.”
Oh my God!
Brilliant!
I felt my smile spread so wide, it hurt my mouth. “You’re a genius.”
She pointed to her face, “This is not just pretty.”
“It’s also pretty.”
She pushed up, grabbed the back of my head, kissed the top, then rolled off the bed.
She was halfway to the door when I called, “Lou?”
She turned back.
“My mother was filled with bilious hate, constant. I’d go visit her and that’s all I’d hear, we’d hear when Portia came with me. How much she gave up for him. How much she trusted him. How he’d used her and thrown her away. How men are all evil and selfish. That, coupled with Dad having piles of money, was why she lost custody of me. And then Andrea was a total waste of space.” I drew in breath. “And then there was you.”
I watched her suck in her lips.
She let them go to say a husky, “Stop it.”
“Love you,” I whispered.
“Love you back,” she whispered in return.
Then she left my room.
I woke.
The room was total darkness.
I threw the covers aside, swung out of bed, went to the window, pulled the drapes back, and looked down, searching for Daniel walking into the mist.
Daniel wasn’t there.
Wearing a pale, beaded, flapper’s dress, Virginia Alcott stood outside, looking up at me, those wounded eyes filled with longing. With pain.
I put my hand on the cold glass.
She lifted her hand to her throat.
Her mouth didn’t move, but I heard her words.
What about Joan?
“Joan?” I whispered.
