Chapter 27 - celeste answered the one question maisie could not stop asking
At fourteen, Maisie wrote to Celeste.
One question.
She did not show me first.
She showed Audrey.
Then Brooke.
Only afterward me.
The question was:
If I had never owned part of Rosemere, would you still have wanted me gone from the wedding?
I hated it.
Not because it was unfair.
Because no answer could be painless.
Celeste took three weeks.
Then wrote:
I wish I could tell you no.
The truth is I had already become jealous of your place in your father’s life before I understood the trust.
Derek used the ownership issue to turn that jealousy into something harsher.
He made me feel that your existence meant I would never truly belong to either Grant or Rosemere.
But he could only use that fear because I already believed love was something people ranked.
So I cannot honestly say the wedding would have been healthy if you owned nothing.
The business gave my resentment an excuse.
It did not create the resentment.
Maisie read it twice.
Then cried.
Not because Celeste blamed her.
Because the answer removed the clean version.
The wig had not been destroyed only because of money.
A woman preparing to marry her father had resented a child for being loved first.
Maisie asked:
“Was Dad wrong to put me first?”
“No.”
Audrey answered before me.
Good.
Parents are supposed to protect children before romantic partners in matters of safety.
That did not mean every adult need came second forever.
But a three-year-old and an adult fiancée were not equal dependents.
Maisie whispered:
“She wanted me to be less.”
“Yes.”
I hated saying it.
Then:
“Do you think she still does?”
I thought about the letter.
“No.”
“But that does not mean you owe her anything.”
Maisie kept the reply.
May you like
Still no meeting.
The truth was enough for then.
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