Chapter 16 - Margaret's Last Letter
The letter arrived without warning.
Margaret had written it by hand.
Lily almost threw it away.
Instead, she read it once.
Margaret did not ask for forgiveness.
Perhaps her lawyers had advised her.
Perhaps she finally understood she had no right to ask.
She wrote about control.
About fear.
About a family obsessed with maintaining appearances.
She admitted convincing herself that protecting the Whitmore name justified anything.
At the end she wrote:
I called you weak because I needed you to believe it. If you had known your strength, my plan would never have worked.
Lily stared at that sentence.
Then she folded the letter.
Evelyn asked, "What will you do with it?"
"Keep it."
"Why?"
"Because sometimes evidence isn't for court."
She placed it beside the old pale blue robe.
Not trophies.
Not wounds.
May you like
Proof.
She had survived a version of herself that once believed escape was impossible.
