How a Dying Woman Rewrote Her Epilogue

Elodie could sense Octavia's awkwardness, but she wasn't about to bring it up herself. After all, Octavia was an adult now, no longer a child; some lessons had to be learned through personal responsibility and mistakes. Life itself was a long, winding class, and there were still so many values and perspectives yet to be understood.

After dinner, the family matriarch arranged everyone's rooms. Elodie didn't want to be apart from Nadia for even a second, so she carried her already-sleeping daughter upstairs. She had just finished settling Nadia in when someone knocked at the door.

Assuming it was Jarrod, Elodie called out, "It's your house. Why bother knocking?"

There was a brief pause on the other side, and then the door opened. To her surprise, it wasn't Jarrod, but Lucinda.

Lucinda didn't step into the room. She lingered just inside the doorway, her gaze drifting to Nadia, who slept soundly in the bed. Then, her eyes met Elodie's. The formidable, coolly elegant matriarch of the Silverstein family-so often sharp and distant-wore an unusually complex expression, but it lasted only a heartbeat.

you. And I remember when you were sick, barely holding yourself together, yet you still went to Silverstein Enterprises to help him bring order to the chaos. That day, my view

advantage, had never been one to lower herself for personal matters. People in her position rarely apologized, especially for things brushed aside as

Elodie knew,

through the moment again. "And for how I treated you before I neglected you. I'm not asking for forgiveness. You don't owe me that. All you need is to have no barriers

for empty gestures. Now that Jarrod and Elodie wère mseparable, witha child between them, Lucinda would inévitably be part of their

enough, but the apology-however understated-made Elodie realize something. Lucinda, for all her privileged background, wasn't the type to be trapped by the em rituals of high

a small, silent smile. She knew Lucinda hadn't needed to say any of this. As the Silverstein matriarch and the

as so many elders did, sweeping old hurts under the rug in the