THE HOSPITAL CALLED ABOUT MY HUSBAND’S PREGNANT MISTRESS—THEN I FOUND MY NAME ON A DOCUMENT I NEVER SIGNED
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Chapter 16 / 19
Chapter 16 - Margaret’s Last Request
Margaret became ill the following winter.
She asked to see me.
I went.
Not because she deserved it.
Because I wanted no unfinished rooms left inside me.
She looked smaller.
“Elena.”
“Margaret.”
She apologized.
Not elegantly.
Not perfectly.
But sincerely.
“I spent my life protecting the Ashford name,” she said. “Then I watched my son nearly destroy himself trying to live up to it.”
I sat beside her.
“You helped.”
“I know.”
She cried.
I did not tell her everything was okay.
It wasn’t.
But before I left, I held her hand.
May you like
Forgiveness did not rewrite history.
It simply stopped history from demanding rent inside my head.
