I cleared my throat and walked toward the kitchen. The house was warm, almost hot, the furnace humming through the floor vents with a dry, dusty heat.
From the kitchen, I heard the sharp, clipped cadence of Clara’s voice.
“She has to understand that we did what was necessary,” Clara was saying. “There was no other way to secure the house.”
I stopped in the middle of the hallway, my boots silent on the carpet runner.
“It was her money, Clara,” Grandma Ruth’s voice was soft, trembling slightly. “Elena wanted them to have it.”
The name Elena went through me like a physical blow. Our biological mother, the woman who had allegedly left us on a church doorstep when we were toddlers, according to the story Clara had told us since we were old enough to ask.
“Elena is gone,” Clara said. “She has been gone a long time.”
I leaned against the wallpaper, the cold paper of the flower bouquet crinkling slightly in my grip.
“You took the eighty-four thousand,” Grandma Ruth whispered. “You bought this place with it.”
“And I raised her boys,” Clara snapped. “I gave them a home. Everything went exactly according to my plan.”
