Chapter 5 - Why Gene Never Called Me Her Granddaughter
My mother died when I was three.
I don’t remember her voice clearly, only pieces—her perfume, her soft brown coat, the way she used to tuck blankets around me too tightly as if she could secure the whole world if she tucked hard enough.
Dad never remarried.
People asked why all the time.
He always answered the same way:
“Because Ava deserved honesty, not replacement.”
Grandma Gene hated that answer.
She hated anything that suggested devotion to me might come before obedience to her.
After my mother died, Dad and I moved into the estate for what was supposed to be “a temporary period of family support.”
Temporary turned into years.
At first, Gene played the gracious matriarch. She hosted dinners, selected governesses, and told everyone how committed she was to helping Brandon raise his daughter.
Behind closed doors, it was different.
She corrected the way I sat.
The way I spoke.
The way I laughed.
Once, when I was five, I ran into the library carrying one of Grandpa Arthur’s gardening books because I wanted to show him a drawing I’d made of lilies.
He hugged me, sat me on his knee, and told me the drawing was going on his desk.
Gene had stood in the doorway and said, smiling, “You indulge her so much, Arthur. She’ll start thinking this house belongs to her.”
Grandpa Arthur had answered without even looking up from my drawing.
“Maybe it should.”
I didn’t understand why the room went cold after that.
May you like
Dad did.
And so did Gene.
