One-Way True Daughter Comes Home

Chapter 2 The Apology

The dining room was long and dark, with a table that could seat sixteen and a candle that was lit at one end. Graham sat at the head. Delia sat to his right. I sat to his left. There were three plates.

"Delia has something she wants to say," Graham said.

Delia put down her fork. She had changed into a dress for dinner. I was still in the clothes I had flown in, and I had not been offered time to change.

She looked at me, and her eyes filled with tears. She let out a small breath, the kind a person takes when they are about to do something difficult, and then she reached across the table and took my hand.

"Rachel," she said. "I'm so sorry. Last week, when I talked to the reporter, I said things I shouldn't have. I said you were confused. I said you were taking advantage of Graham's grief. That was wrong, and I know it was wrong."

I looked at her hand. It was warm. She had soft hands. The nails were perfect.

"I want to be your sister," she said. "I mean that. I know we didn't grow up together, but you're part of this family now, and I want us to start over. Please. Can we start over?"

There was a silence. Graham watched me. Delia watched me. Mrs. Finch stood in the doorway with a serving dish and watched me too.

I could have said no. I could have pulled my hand back. But I had spent three weeks thinking about what I wanted from this house, and the answer was not revenge. The answer was a place. I did not want to be the woman who arrived and left. I wanted to be the woman who stayed.

So I nodded.

"Okay."

Delia's face lit up. "Really?"

"Really," I said. "I want a fresh start too. But there's something we need to take care of first."

"Anything," Delia said. "Anything at all."

"The movers," I said. "I had a moving company pick up my things yesterday. They were supposed to deliver them tomorrow morning. And I had a flight changed, and a hotel canceled. The moving company charges three hundred dollars to cancel on the day of the move. The airline charges four hundred and eighty to change the ticket back."

Delia's face went still.

"So I need to know who's paying for that," I said. "Because if I'm staying here, my things need to come here. And if I'm not staying, then I need to go home, and the moving company and the airline will charge me for the changes. Either way, someone has to cover the cost. And I don't think it should be me, because I didn't create this situation."

The room was quiet.

Graham cleared his throat. "I'll pay."

Delia turned to him. "Graham, you don't have to..."

"I'll pay," Graham said again. He looked at me with something that might have been respect, or might have been anger. "Send me the receipts."

"Thank you," I said.

Delia's expression flickered. She had wanted me to say thank you and nothing else. She had wanted me to be grateful. Instead I had made her watch her father write a check for a problem she had created.

Dinner continued. Delia talked about the gala. She talked about the foundation. She talked about a photographer who was coming next week to shoot the house for a magazine feature. She did not ask me a single question about my life.

After dinner, I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Mrs. Finch was there, wiping down the counter.

"You handled that well," she said quietly.

"I didn't handle anything," I said. "I just asked a question."

Mrs. Finch looked at me. "In this house, asking a question is handling something. And Delia doesn't like it when people handle things."

I took my water upstairs. My phone buzzed. I looked at it.

Elena: How was dinner?

Me: She apologized. I made her father pay for the movers.

Elena: You didn't.

Me: I did.

Elena: That's my girl.

I put the phone down. Outside, the ocean was dark. I could hear the sound of the waves, and somewhere in the house, Delia was laughing at something.

I lay in bed and thought about the trust. I had not mentioned it. Graham had not mentioned it. Delia had not mentioned it. But it was there, sitting in a lawyer's office, waiting.

The next morning, my phone rang at seven. It was my neighbor from back home.