Chapter 5
I ended the engagement formally within the week, through my attorney rather than in person, once I understood I no longer trusted myself to have another direct conversation with Lorna without saying things I'd regret losing control over. She didn't contest it. I think, in the end, she understood that whatever version of this relationship she'd been managing carefully for a year had ended the moment I heard that sentence in my own entryway, and no amount of backpedaling was going to undo it.
Lenette stayed, obviously — her position in our household was never actually in question once I understood what had been quietly planned around her. I gave her a raise she probably should have had years earlier and made sure, in ways I hadn't thought to before, that she knew her place in our family wasn't contingent on anyone else's approval but mine.
May you like
Estelle asked about Lorna a few times in the weeks after, the way kids ask about sudden absences without fully understanding the reasons behind them. I told her, as honestly as I could manage for a six-year-old, that Lorna wasn't going to be part of our family, and that some people say things about children that no grown-up should ever say, and that her father had heard exactly what he needed to hear to know that for certain.
I don't know if I'll get engaged again. I know that whenever I do, it won't be to someone who's spent a year showing me one version of herself while quietly building a different life for my daughter behind it. Estelle deserves better than a stepmother who plans her disappearance before the wedding even happens. So do I.
