The Ignore Daughter Have True Honor Chapter 03
My father froze.
“What do you mean, he’s not coming? It’s Julian’s wedding. How is he not showing up?”
Serena sighed.
“Julian said there’s an important guest flying in from out of town this weekend. Mr. Ashford has to host them personally. He can’t get away.”
Elliot frowned. “Who is this person? More important than his own grandson’s wedding?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Serena said, shaking her head. “Julian just said someone from the East Coast. Apparently Mr. Ashford spent months working his network just to get this meeting on the calendar.”
Melanie looked baffled. “What kind of person makes an Ashford wait that long? Do you know what that family is worth in New England?”
Ethan scoffed. “Exactly. Nothing tops Serena’s wedding.”
Serena waved them off quickly. “Don’t say that. Julian told me this person holds a technical patent that’s exactly what Ashford Industries needs right now. Mr. Ashford said if they can close this deal, the family is set for the next decade.”
She paused. Then, with studied casualness, she glanced at me.
“Hazel, you’ve been out there a while. Have you heard anything about who this might be?”
I shook my head.
“Not really.”
Elliot let out a short, derisive laugh. “She never finished college. What would she have heard? Serena, stop dragging her into every conversation. She can’t keep up.”
I kept eating and said nothing.
What was I supposed to say?
That the person Mr. Ashford had been chasing for months was me?
They’d laugh in my face and hit me with a “Come on, don’t flatter yourself.”
After dinner, I sat around for a while and was about to get up when my father stopped me.
“Hazel, your mom cleaned out your old room a few days ago. You haven’t been home in ten years. She won’t say it, but she’s missed you.”
He added, with a small smile, “New sheets, new pillowcases. She picked them out herself.”
Right on cue, my mother came out of the kitchen wiping her hands, her voice flat.
“Melanie’s taking the guest room tonight. Hazel, you can crash on the couch.”
My father’s smile stiffened on his face.
Melanie looked up from the couch, glanced at me, and the corner of her mouth twitched upward.
“Mrs. Whitmore, please, I couldn’t. I can just book an Airbnb.”
My mother’s tone left no room for discussion. “You come home so rarely. I’m not letting you stay at some stranger’s place. Hazel’s family. She can take the couch.”
I stood next to the dining table and said nothing.
The summer after I finished the SAT, Melanie stayed over.
I gave her my room and curled up on the living room couch all night.
The AC broke that night. In August.
I woke up sweating three times. By morning my shirt was soaked through and my neck was cramped from the couch arm.
When my mother saw me the next morning, all she said was, “You should’ve grabbed a blanket from the closet and slept on the guest room floor. Guest room has the window unit.”
Melanie stayed over a few more times after that.
Once, I stood in the doorway of my own room and watched my mother bend over the guest bed, carefully smoothing fresh sheets, a soft smile on her face.
I stood there thinking I looked like a guest who’d wandered into the wrong house.
“Hazel?”
My mother’s voice pulled me back.
She was frowning, apparently annoyed that I hadn’t immediately agreed.
I stood up.
“That’s alright. I already booked a hotel.”
Her face darkened.
“What is that supposed to mean? You’d rather stay in a hotel than at home? Is the couch beneath you now?”
I picked up my coat and started toward the door.
“I sleep better in my own bed.”
Behind me, I heard my mother mutter to my father, “Ten years away, and her attitude’s out of control. Every single thing has to be a fight.”
The door closed behind me.
Ten years ago, the girl who spent that night on the couch would have cried into her pillow, unable to understand why her mother was kinder to other people’s daughters than to her own.
The Hazel of ten years later doesn’t cry over that.
The deposits kept coming in. Patent licensing fees. Equity distributions. Royalty payments. Each one trailed by so many zeros I’d stopped counting.
She’d stopped needing anyone else to be good to her.
She was good to herself. Generously.