Chapter 12
The Letter That Ruined the Sacrifice
Their mother had not stayed only for her daughters. She had stayed because leaving terrified her.
The letter named money, illness and love, but also fear of ridicule and failure. She wrote that sacrifice had become a flattering story she told after choice felt impossible.
Celia had used that story for twenty years. She postponed the Marlowe, accepted Martin's certainty and called endurance inheritance. The letter removed her noblest excuse without removing the years.
Marianne wept. Celia felt furious with a dead woman for becoming complicated.
Martin stood beside the door. "I knew about one letter."
Silence altered the room.
He had found it seven years earlier while insulating the loft. Their mother described the cinema, her fear and Celia's habit of making herself useful before anyone asked.
"I thought it would hurt you," Martin said.
"So you hid it."
"I protected you."
Celia folded the page once. "That is what you call every decision you make without me."