Chapter 12 - Eleanor Said She Had Loved Ava Once
The first mediated conversation happened after the no-contact restriction expired.
Ava almost canceled.
Then attended.
Neutral office.
No Mercer building.
No hospital.
No lawyers inside.
Eleanor wore gray.
No red heels.
Ava noticed and disliked herself for noticing.
They sat across from each other.
Mediator began:
“What do you each want from this meeting?”
Ava answered:
“Truth.”
Eleanor:
“I don’t know.”
Good.
Then Ava asked:
“Did you ever love me?”
Eleanor looked startled.
Not the hospital question.
Not shares.
This.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before you decided I was replacing your mother.”
Ava flinched.
She had been sixteen.
Eleanor continued.
“I tried too hard.”
That was true.
Eleanor took Ava shopping.
Attended school events.
Learned her favorite restaurant.
Then Ava told Katherine about each gesture.
Katherine interpreted some as manipulation.
Ava absorbed the suspicion.
Then Jonathan defended Eleanor.
Ava experienced that as choosing new wife over daughter.
Family triangle.
Then college.
Ava softened.
Eleanor helped when Jonathan was sick.
They became almost friendly.
Then Katherine’s health declined.
Old loyalties returned.
Company politics intensified.
Ava started seeing Eleanor again as competitor.
Eleanor felt it.
Then Jonathan died.
Ava blamed Eleanor for how quickly she assumed governance roles.
Eleanor blamed Ava for treating Jonathan’s widow as temporary.
Both.
Then Ava asked:
“When did you stop loving me?”
Eleanor cried.
“I didn’t.”
Ava stared.
“Then what happened at the hospital?”
Eleanor looked down.
“Love became something I thought entitled me to decide.”
There.
Useful.
Then:
“I thought I knew what Jonathan would want.”
“Which was?”
“Family shares together.”
“Under you.”
“Yes.”
At least honest.
Then Eleanor asked Ava:
“Did you ever consider me family?”
Ava wanted to say no.
That would simplify everything.
Instead:
“Sometimes.”
Eleanor nodded.
That answer hurt more.
Then Ava said:
“When Dad died, I thought if I acknowledged what you had done for him, I was betraying Mom.”
Eleanor looked at her.
“Your mother did the same thing.”
Maybe.
Katherine rarely praised Eleanor publicly.
Even when privately conceding competence.
The two women spent years forcing Ava to interpret respect as betrayal.
Then Eleanor admitted something.
After Jonathan’s death, she found a letter he wrote to Ava but never sent.
She kept it for six months.
Ava stared.
“What?”
Not a secret inheritance.
A personal letter.
Jonathan apologized for putting Ava between two households after divorce.
Why keep it?
Eleanor feared it would reopen Ava’s anger during probate.
Again:
withholding information to manage someone else’s emotions.
She eventually delivered it through Voss.
Ava remembered receiving it late.
She never knew why.
“That was you?”
“Yes.”
Ava felt rage.
Then sadness.
“How many times did you decide I wasn’t ready for my own life?”
Eleanor cried.
“Too many.”
That answer covered more than the hospital.
Then Eleanor asked:
“Why did you say Mercer could finally move forward after Katherine died?”
Ava looked away.
Because part of her was relieved too.
Katherine had been difficult.
Control-heavy.
Suspicious.
Dying slowly had exhausted everyone.
Ava loved her.
Also sometimes wished the conflict would stop.
When death came, relief mixed with devastation.
Then guilt.
Ava turned guilt into loyalty.
Defend Mom’s shares.
Defend Mom’s deal preferences.
Defend Mom’s legacy.
Eleanor heard another dead person controlling the room.
The family kept using the dead to win arguments among the living.
Then Ava admitted:
“I used Mom too.”
Eleanor looked up.
“To avoid deciding what I wanted.”
There.
Good.
Then the mediator asked whether they wanted reconciliation.
Eleanor said:
“I do.”
Ava did not.
Not now.
She said:
“I want distance.”
Eleanor nodded.
No argument.
Progress.
Then Eleanor asked:
“Forever?”
Ava took time.
“I don’t know.”
That became the one thread neither governance nor court could decide.
Then Eleanor apologized again.
Specific:
for the oxygen tube,
the hospital papers,
using Katherine’s death,
withholding Jonathan’s letter years earlier,
trying to convert Ava’s weakness into control.
Ava believed the apology was sincere.
That did not create trust.
Then Ava apologized for:
using inherited power to erase Eleanor’s contribution,
dismissing Katherine’s warnings,
using hospital urgency against Katherine years earlier,
and treating Eleanor’s status as “second wife” as though it made her work less real.
Eleanor cried.
No hug.
Good.
The meeting ended.
Outside, Ava sat in her car for fifteen minutes.
Not destroyed.
Not healed.
Simply tired.
Then Rachel called.
The estate had finished distribution.
Katherine’s personal affairs were officially closed.
No secret assets.
No new letters.
No hidden betrayal.
Just the life already lived.
Ava could no longer use unfinished probate as reason to postpone her own future.
May you like
Part 12 gave Ava and Eleanor understanding without reconciliation: both women admitted they had turned love, legacy, and caregiving into claims of authority. Part 13 would close Katherine’s estate and reshape Mercer governance so no future family crisis depended on who could seize control fastest.
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