[CHAPTER 6]
Lydia came back three days later.
Not to the house.
To court.
Her attorney filed an emergency petition claiming Dad was preventing her from accessing marital property.
She also claimed I was being manipulated by Mara’s family.
When Dad’s lawyer read the documents aloud, I laughed.
I could not help it.
The sound came out ugly.
“She’s saying I’m being manipulated?”
Dad looked furious.
“She’s trying to control the narrative.”
The petition included something worse.
A request for an independent evaluation of my mental condition.
My laughter stopped.
“She wants them to say I’m crazy.”
“No.”
Dad moved beside me.
“She wants to create doubt.”
Same thing.
The court denied Lydia access to the house but ordered that some of her belongings be collected under supervision.
Two days later she arrived with her lawyer.
Martin did not come.
Police were already investigating him.
Lydia walked through our front door like she still owned the place.
I stayed in the living room.
Dad wanted me upstairs.
I refused.
I needed her to see me.
Not frightened.
Not hiding.
She stopped when she noticed me standing with my crutches.
“You look stronger.”
I said nothing.
“I’ve been worried about you.”
Dad laughed bitterly from the doorway.
“Pack.”
Lydia sighed.
“I wasn’t speaking to you.”
She looked back at me.
“Clara, whatever you think you remember—”
“I remember your hand.”
She stopped.
I continued.
“I remember your ring cutting my wrist.”
Her right hand moved instinctively.
The ring was gone.
Interesting.
“I remember your voice.”
She looked at her attorney.
He quietly warned her not to discuss the investigation.
Lydia ignored him.
“You were terrified that day.”
“Yes.”
“And terrified people confuse details.”
“No.”
“I loved you.”
That sentence made something in me explode.
“You loved my money.”
Dad closed his eyes.
Lydia’s face went cold.
There she was.
The real person beneath the soft voice.
“You think everything belongs to you because your mother died and left you a fortune?”
The room went silent.
Her attorney whispered, “Lydia.”
She continued anyway.
“You have spent six years acting like grief makes you special.”
Dad stepped toward her.
“Stop.”
I lifted my hand.
“No.”
I wanted her to speak.
I wanted every ugly word.
Because Dad needed to hear it too.
Lydia looked at me.
“I raised you.”
“You controlled me.”
“I took you to doctors.”
“You told them I was imagining things.”
“I sat beside your hospital bed.”
“Because you were scared I’d wake up remembering.”
Her mouth closed.
That hit her.
I saw it.
For one second, she looked exactly as she had in the garden.
Cornered.
Then she smiled.
“You always were dramatic.”
Her attorney physically guided her away.
I was shaking when she disappeared upstairs.
Dad came toward me.
I stepped back.
“I need a minute.”
He respected it.
That was new.
Later, while Lydia packed, I went to the downstairs bathroom.
I was washing my hands when I heard voices through the vent.
The upstairs guest room sat directly above me.
Lydia was speaking to her attorney.
“I want every medical record from the last year.”
“You already have what you’re entitled to.”
“I need the neurologist’s notes.”
“Why?”
“Because she had memory loss.”
Her attorney lowered his voice.
“That won’t erase the recording.”
“What recording?”
Silence.
Too late.
He had not known.
I pulled out my phone and began recording.
The attorney said, “If there’s an audio recording, I need to know.”
Lydia cursed.
Then her voice changed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You just reacted.”
“I am under stress.”
“Did you threaten Mara?”
No answer.
“Lydia.”
“She was a thief.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Then footsteps.
I stopped recording.
Someone was coming downstairs.
I moved into the hallway.
Lydia appeared.
She saw my phone.
Her eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking the time.”
She walked toward me.
I tightened my hands around the crutches.
For half a second, we were alone.
Her attorney was still upstairs.
Dad was across the house.
Lydia stopped close enough for me to smell her perfume.
The same perfume from the garden.
My body reacted before my mind did.
I froze.
She saw it.
And smiled.
“You do remember.”
My pulse screamed.
She leaned slightly closer.
“Then you should remember what happens when you run.”
I stared at her.
Fear flooded me.
But I stayed where I was.
“I’m not running now.”
Her smile vanished.
Dad’s voice came from behind her.
“What did you just say?”
Lydia spun around.
Dad stood at the end of the hall.
He had heard.
She tried to recover.
“Nothing.”
I held up my phone.
“I recorded it.”
For the first time, she looked afraid of me.
Not my father.
Not the police.
Me.
Her attorney came downstairs carrying a suitcase.
He looked from Lydia to my phone.
Then he did something I never expected.
He handed the suitcase to her.
“I’m withdrawing as your counsel.”
Lydia stared at him.
“What?”
“I told you not to speak.”
“You work for me.”
“Not anymore.”
He walked out.
Lydia’s face twisted.
She looked at Dad.
Then at me.
“You’re destroying this family.”
I almost pitied her.
Almost.
May you like
“No,” I said.
“You did that when you chased me into the garden.”
