Chapter 383

[ 1,365 words ]

Delia’s POV

I drove home from Katia’s office with my hands too tight on the wheel, replaying the conversation in my head until the words stopped making sense in any order.

Martha was in the kitchen when I walked in, and she looked up from whatever she was chopping the moment she saw my face.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Katia is pregnant again,” I said.

Mama set the knife down.

“Again,” she repeated.

“Apparently,” I said, dropping my bag onto a chair harder than I meant to. “I caught her getting sick in the office bathroom. When I asked her who the father was this time, she told me it was Julian.” I let out a short, humorless laugh. “As if I would believe that. As if she thinks I do not know exactly what she is trying to do p>

“What is she trying to do?” Mama asked carefully.

“Hurt me,” I said. “Obviously. She knows I live in his house. She knows how badly I have wanted something real with him, and she said his name just to watch my face when I heard it. That is what my sister does, Mother. She takes whatever she can find and uses it as a weapon p>

Mama was quiet for a moment, studying me in the careful way she did when she was deciding how much to actually say and how much to simply let pass.

“And if it is true,” she said finally.

“It is not true,” I said. “Julian has never once touched me in two years. Do you really believe he suddenly decided my sister was worth breaking his own rule for p>

“I did not say I believed it,” Mama said. “I asked what you would do if it turned out to be true p>

I did not have an answer for that, so I ignored the question entirely and reached for the kettle instead, filling it with more force than the task actually required.

Mama watched me for a moment, then set her knife down again, wiping her hands on the towel hanging at her waist.

“Sit down, Delia,” she said.

“I do not want to sit down,” I said. “I want to make tea p>

“Sit down anyway p>

I sat, mostly because arguing with my mother when she used that tone had never once worked in my favor, not in years of trying.

“Tell me what she actually said,” Mama said. “Word for word. Not what you think it meant. What she said p>

I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing myself back into the office, the fluorescent light of the bathroom, the sound of her retching, and the way she had looked at me afterward, pale but entirely composed, as though throwing up in front of her sister were simply one more inconvenient item on her schedule.

“I asked her who the father was,” I said. “She looked at me and said, and I am quoting her exactly, It is the man you claim is your husband. She told me to stop pretending I did not know she and Julian had been sleeping together p>

Mama’s expression did not change, but something in her posture shifted, a stillness that had not been there a moment before.

“She used that word,” Mama asked. “Claim p>

“Yes,” I said.

“Not the man you married. Not your husband. Claim p>

I stared at her.

“You are reading too much into one word,” I said, though even as I said it, I heard how uncertain the sentence came out, the confidence I had walked in with already starting to crack around the edges I had spent the whole drive home reinforcing.

“Perhaps,” Martha said. “Or perhaps your sister chooses her words more carefully than either of us gives her credit for p>

“You do not know Julian the way I do,” I said. “I have lived in his house for two years. I know exactly what he is capable of and exactly what he is not p>

“Two years in the same house is not the same as two years in the same bed,” Martha said, her voice quiet but unflinching. “You have told me yourself, more than once, that he barely looks at you. That he keeps to his own wing. That you have never once shared a night together in all that time. If that is true, then you know considerably less about what Julian Windsor is capable of than you believe you do p>

The words landed somewhere I did not want them to land, and I felt my jaw tighten before I could stop it.

“That does not mean he is sleeping with my sister,” I said.

“No,” Mama agreed. “It does not mean that on its own. But it does mean you are not in a position to speak with certainty about what he wants or who he wants it with, because he has made very sure you would never have that information in the first place p>

I stood up from the table, needing the movement more than I needed anywhere to actually go.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why are you sitting here building a case for a truth you cannot possibly know is real, instead of simply supporting me the way a mother is supposed to p>

Mama set the knife down again, and for the first time since I had walked into the kitchen, something softened in her face, the sharp, careful composure giving way to something closer to genuine sadness.

“Because I love you,” she said. “And because I watched you build two years of your life around a man who told you plainly, from the very beginning, exactly what this was and was not going to be. I supported that decision when you made it, because I wanted good things for you and I believed the Windsor name would bring them. I am not certain anymore that support looks the same as agreement. Sometimes love means telling you the truth even when the truth is not what you want standing beside you in that fight p>

I did not have an answer for that.

I turned toward the kettle again, needing something to occupy my hands while the rest of me tried to catch up with what she had just said.

“We are no closer to finding out who fathered her first child either,” I said, my voice quieter now. “Aiden. Nobody has ever been able to confirm who that man actually was. And now there is apparently a second one, and she wants us all to believe it is Julian, of all people p>

“The two questions may be connected,” Mama said.

I turned to look at her.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“A woman does not usually build an elaborate lie around paternity unless the truth is something she has reason to protect,” Martha said, choosing her words with visible care. “If Katia has spent years refusing to name Aiden’s father and now claims the same man fathered a second child, ask yourself why she would hand you that detail if it were not at least partly true p>

“Because she wanted to hurt me,” I said again, though the words felt less solid coming out the second time.

“Or she has simply stopped caring whether the truth hurts you,” Mama said, “because she no longer feels the need to protect a secret she has kept for seven years p>

I stared at her.

“You think it is true,” I said, quieter this time, less an accusation than a question I was actually afraid to hear answered.

Mama did not answer directly. She picked the knife back up and returned to the vegetables in front of her, her expression carefully unreadable in the way she had perfected over decades of never quite saying what she actually believed until she was certain it was safe to say it.

“I think,” she said, “that you should stop assuming you understand your sister’s motives simply because understanding them the other way would be less painful for you p>

I left the kitchen without responding, the kettle forgotten on the counter behind me, her words following me up the stairs whether I wanted them to or not.

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