It was not a question.
“She may have been keeping options open.”
The excuse sounded pathetic.
June lifted her eyes.
“Why are you defending her?”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You always find a reason why she didn’t mean to hurt us.”
The towel went still in my hands.
I wanted to say I was protecting June from believing Margaret had acted deliberately.
But my daughter was seventeen, not seven.
She did not need comforting lies.
“I have spent most of my life inventing kinder explanations for your grandmother than she deserves,” I admitted.
“Why?”
“Because accepting the truth would have meant admitting she was never going to become the mother I wanted.”
June absorbed that quietly.
My phone lit with a voicemail transcription.
Claire, this has gone far enough. Your uncles had to pay hundreds because of your tantrum. Reimburse everyone tomorrow and apologize.
June read it over my shoulder.
Her sadness remained, but something firmer appeared beneath it.
“No.”
“No what?”
“Do not pay anyone back.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You always pay. You always fix everything after Grandma causes a problem. That is why she keeps doing it.”
There it was.
The truth I had spent decades avoiding, spoken by the person I believed I was protecting.
Another message arrived from Aunt Linda.
I found something in pictures from last weekend. You need to see it before Margaret comes to your house.
Attached was a screenshot from a relative’s social media post.
Mom stood inside Bellweather beside the private dining room.
Behind her, a confirmation board displayed the date of her reservation.
Nine days earlier.
Margaret had confirmed the restaurant more than a week ago.
Then she continued asking June about the menu.
She requested another dessert.
She reminded her to include the roasted vegetables.
She let my daughter work from three in the morning until three in the afternoon knowing she would never be invited.
I did not sleep that night.
At one in the morning, I opened a spreadsheet and listed everything I had paid for Margaret during the previous three years.
Phone service.