Chapter 6 - The Cost of What I Had Refused to Say
Daniel told Lily the truth about one thing.
The yacht might be sold.
Not because of the accident.
Not because Lily had done anything wrong.
Because adults sometimes changed financial plans.
Lily cried.
“Mom’s boat?”
Daniel sat beside her on Rachel’s porch.
“It was ours.”
“Do we have to sell Mom too?”
The question nearly broke him.
He shook his head.
“No. Nobody can sell memories.”
Lily leaned against him.
For years, Daniel had told himself keeping Maribel was for Lily.
Now he confronted an uncomfortable possibility.
Some of it had been for him.
The yacht cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to crew, insure, dock, and maintain.
Daniel could afford it in good years.
This was not a good year.
Claire had repeatedly asked for a financial conversation.
Daniel had repeatedly postponed it.
He had treated refusal as decision-making.
That was his mistake.
He said so during a meeting with Claire and their attorneys.
“I should have told you the truth about the business.”
Claire looked surprised.
Daniel continued.
“I should have discussed selling the yacht.”
Her eyes filled.
“But that does not move one inch toward what you did to Lily.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Daniel studied her.
“Then tell me why you needed me to think she was dying.”
Claire looked toward her attorney.
The attorney said nothing.
Claire finally answered.
“Because every rational argument failed.”
Daniel felt anger rising again.
“So terror was argument number two?”
“I thought if you felt what I felt—”
“What did you feel?”
“Like Hannah was going to win forever.”
Daniel stared at her.
Claire covered her face briefly.
“I hated that boat.”
“I knew.”
“No. You knew I complained about the boat. You didn’t know what it felt like to be on it.”
She lowered her hands.
“Every cabinet had a story. Every port had a memory. Lily would say, ‘Mom loved this,’ and you’d light up in a way you never did when I planned anything.”
Daniel looked away.
That hurt because there was truth inside it.
Claire continued.
“I wanted one thing in our life that didn’t belong to a dead woman.”
Daniel’s voice became quiet.
“So you used her daughter.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
It was the first time she said it without hiding behind the word drill.
But even then, Daniel sensed she was withholding something.
May you like
Because jealousy explained why Claire wanted Maribel gone.
It still did not explain why she had chosen that exact night.
