sign here and here. I didn’t even have time to read them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company is off the table completely by now. Do you think maybe this was her plan all along? To declare me mentally incompetent to get back at my grandmother for making her have me?”
“Knowing Victoria, I wouldn’t put it past her,” Sophie answered. “And while we’re talking about her, she can’t just take your inheritance from you. If the company is set up to go from daughter to daughter, then it will be yours. And I’m going to talk to my lawyers about her freezing your accounts. That’s just not right.”
Emma didn’t care about the company or the trust fund. In her life money had only brought about bad decisions and unhappiness. “Thank you, but I’m not sure I even want the company. At twelve, I just didn’t want to have tutors and be homeschooled. Now I realize what a horrible life my father has lived, and why I never liked the idea of power and money.”
“Why did he marry her?” Sophie asked.
“Mother found him in the mail room at the company. He never knew his birth family and was raised in foster homes,” Emma answered. “Now that I’m not on meds, things are clearing up. He must have wanted a place in the world. She needed a husband to produce a child, and he was also a little way to get back at her mother for insisting that she get married.”
“But there’s that huge picture of them on their wedding day hanging over the mantel,” Sophie said.
“Mother said that was Grandmother’s idea. All the women in the family had their picture taken on their wedding day and hung it in the living room,” Emma said. “I’d forgotten all this until now. Why would it come back to my mind tonight?”
“Because you dreamed that Victoria was in the hallway when you left Terrance’s apartment. You are like your dad. Neither of you ever felt wanted.” Sophie opened up the sleeve of crackers and handed a couple to Emma.
“But I wanted Mother’s approval, right? By letting myself get lured into Terrance’s apartment, that made me pretty dumb in her eyes.” Emma sighed. “I wish it could be over, Sophie.”
“So do I, but it’s a slow process. I bet that sounded like your therapists for sure, didn’t it? Do you think she really would have blamed you? Rebel would have wanted to strangle those guys if that had happened to me. Hell’s bells, she would still want to murder them for doing it to you,” Sophie finished.
Emma nodded slowly. “I don’t feel like I ever pleased her with anything, so yes, she would have that attitude if I’d told her about the rape. In the dream, I dropped to my knees and begged her to forgive me, but she just walked away and left me there. But we should be getting to bed. We’re going to paint rain tomorrow.”
“Hey, I can stay up all night, sleep until noon, and then paint if you want to talk,” Sophie offered.
“I’m fine.” Emma said the familiar words, but she couldn’t believe them herself—not yet, anyway.
Chapter Nine
The sound of rain on a metal roof reminded Sophie of the trailer that she and her mother had lived in when she was a little girl. She’d especially loved the weekends, when she and Rebel would curl up under one of Granny Mason’s handmade quilts and watch old movies. Sophie pulled the covers up to her chin and pretended she was back in that trailer.
If she had had a daughter, would they have been in the living room watching movies that morning? She tried to picture what a daughter would have looked like when she was seventeen. Would she have dark hair and dark eyes like her father, or would she have been a blonde with blue eyes like Sophie? Like Victoria, Sophie had not wanted a child, but unlike Victoria, she would have loved her baby.
Her phone rang and brought her out of the past and into the present. She knew it was Rebel by the ringtone and answered it with, “Good morning, Mama. Is it raining in your part of the state?”
“The sun is shining here. Happy late Easter. Annie threw a little party for our cleaning lady club. My phone was in my purse, and so I missed your call. Did you hunt eggs with your artist friends?” Rebel asked.