eyes.
Then she spoke.
“I did have the original files.”
Claire’s expression hardened.
“And my mother?”
Margaret looked at her.
“Eleanor knew I had copied Russell’s archive.”
Russell whispered, “You told me you only took financial records.”
“I lied.”
“What did you take?”
“Everything.”
His face went pale.
Margaret continued.
“Eleanor wanted to expose it. I wanted to disappear.”
Claire took a step forward.
“So you fought?”
“Yes.”
“Inside the car?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“Eleanor said if we survived Thomas following us, she would go straight to the police.”
Claire waited.
Margaret whispered, “I told her that would get us killed.”
“And?”
“She said she didn’t care.”
Claire’s breathing became ragged.
“Then what?”
“We struggled over the steering wheel.”
The room went silent.
Daniel whispered, “Oh God.”
Margaret nodded.
“The car swerved.”
Claire stared at her.
“You caused the crash.”
“No.”
“You touched the wheel.”
“Yes.”
“You
caused it.”
“I was trying to stop her from turning toward the highway.”
“You killed my mother.”
“I never meant—”
Claire struck her.
The sound cracked through the room.
Margaret didn’t defend herself.
Claire hit her again.
Daniel pulled his sister back.
“Claire!”
“She killed Mom!”
Margaret touched her bleeding lip.
“I have lived with that every day.”
Claire sobbed.
“Good.”
Russell looked destroyed.
For years, every person in this family had carried a different version of one night.
And every version protected the person telling it.
I suddenly understood something.
“Rebecca knows all of this.”
Margaret looked at me.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
Margaret looked away.
“Because Rebecca is Eleanor’s daughter.”
Claire froze.
Daniel stared.
“What?”
Russell’s face emptied.
Margaret nodded.
“Not your mother, Claire. Eleanor had another child before she married Russell.”
Claire whispered, “A daughter?”
“She gave the baby up for adoption when she was seventeen.”
Russell
