Chapter 5 - The Phrase That Made My Daughter Cry Harder
When Maisie finally calmed down enough to speak clearly, Audrey sat beside her and kept her voice soft.
“Can you tell us what happened, sweetheart?”
Maisie swallowed hard.
“She said I ruin everything.”
My jaw tightened.
Audrey brushed a hand over her shoulder. “Why?”
Maisie looked down at the ruined wig in her lap.
“I wanted to show her my flower basket.”
She paused.
“And then she said I wasn’t supposed to wear Mommy’s things.”
That made me look up.
Nora had left Maisie a small collection of custom accessories for major milestones. One of those items was the removable blonde wig Maisie wore that day, specially matched to the flower-girl look Nora had once designed in a sketchbook long before she died.
That wig wasn’t random.
It came from Nora.
Maisie kept going, voice trembling.
“Celeste said when the wedding happened, everything would belong to her now. And I said Mommy gave this to me.”
Then her small lip started shaking again.
“And then she said I don’t belong in her wedding.”
The room went silent.
That was no longer bridal stress.
That was motive.
Celeste hadn’t lashed out randomly.
She had targeted the one visible piece of Nora’s love that Maisie was wearing in public on the very day Celeste expected to step into Nora’s place—in the family, in the estate, and in the company.
May you like
And when a three-year-old defended what was hers, Celeste punished her for it.
---
Related Stories
