Chapter 4 - The Guests Had Been Told Claire Was Unstable
The first call came from Daniel’s cousin Anne.
“I need to tell you something.”
Claire sat upright.
“What?”
Anne had been at dinner.
She had watched Daniel slap Claire.
She had watched Claire slap Margaret.
She had watched the table go over.
And unlike several other guests, she had left disgusted with all of them.
But now she felt guilty.
“Margaret called me two days before dinner.”
Claire’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“What did she say?”
“That you’d been... unstable lately.”
Claire almost laughed.
“Of course.”
“She said Daniel was worried about Noah.”
“What exactly was she worried about?”
Anne hesitated.
“She said you were prone to explosive reactions and that Daniel might need family support if things got worse.”
Claire looked toward Noah, who was coloring on the floor.
“Why invite you to dinner?”
“She said Daniel didn’t want to be alone if there was another scene.”
Another scene.
There had never been another scene like that dinner.
Claire raised her voice sometimes.
Cried.
Walked away from arguments.
Once slammed a bedroom door after Daniel called her useless in front of Noah.
But no shattered furniture.
No assault.
No physical confrontation.
Anne continued.
“I thought we were going there to support both of you.”
“Did anyone else know?”
“I think Margaret called several people.”
The dinner had been seeded before Claire ever entered the room.
People arrived expecting volatility.
Then Daniel provoked her.
Margaret followed.
And Claire gave them exactly the spectacle they had been told to expect.
The manipulation was simple.
They did not need to fabricate the outburst.
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They only needed to create the conditions for one.
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