NovelStartChapter 83
The late afternoon sun slanted through the tall windows of the Lewis family estate, casting long
shadows across the polished floors. Margaret Lewis sat alone in the east wing parlor, surrounded by open photo
albums. Her trembling fingers traced a photograph of seven- year- old Camille, beaming with a missing front
tooth
and holding a science fair ribbon.
"First place," Margaret whispered to the empty room, her smile crumpling.
She turned a page. Camille at
ten, sitting with Margaret on marble steps, their heads bent over. "The Secret Garden." Margaret remembered
how Camille had begged to read two chapters that night.
The memories washed over her in waves. These were all from before Rose had
arrived when Camille was thirteen. Before everything changed.
With shaking hands, she pulled out a photo
tucked between pages: Camille at ten in the kitchen with Margaret, making Christmas cookies despite the chef's
protests. Flour dusted their faces, laughter frozen in time. They had been inseparable then.
"We were happy," Margaret said to the photograph. "We were so happy."
She hadn't realized she was crying until a tear splashed onto the
plastic sleeve. Margaret wiped it away carefully, then pressed
the album to her chest.
The fifteen-thousand-square-foot mansion felt
too vast now, too quiet. Since the day the visited Camille and she cut ties with them, Margaret had moved
through each day like a ghost. Richard's voice echoed in the hallway as he spoke to Bradford, their butler.
"No calls, Bradford. Not even from the board."
"Very good, sir. Shall | have Mrs. Peters prepare dinner for two
in the small dining room?"
"That would be fine. And tell her no seafood tonight. Margaret isn't up to it."
Margaret turned another page. Camille at
fourteen, playing the grand piano at her recital.
Richard's footsteps approached, then stopped in the doorway.
"Oh, Maggie," he said softly, using the nicknhe hadn't spoken in years.
Margaret looked up at her husband. His bespoke suit couldn't hide how his frhad thinned, his shoulders
slumped. His face seemed to have aged a decade in
the past month, deep lines carved around his mouth.
“Look at us,” Margaret said, holding up a family vacation photo. "She was twelve here. Remember how she
wanted to learn to scuba dive, and you were so worried?"
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Richard knelt beside her, taking the photo.
"She went anyway," he said, a ghost of
a smile crossing his face. "Cback with that certification and told
"She was right. We should have worried less about the wrong things."
Richard picked up another photo: Camille on her first day of college.
"I thought she was making a mistake choosing Boston instead of Yale. | told her she
was throwing away opportunities." He shook his head. “She was following her heart, and | couldn't see it."
Margaret gathered more photos: Camille winning debate tournaments, volunteering
at the animal shelter, laughing with friends at graduation.
"She was always so good, Richard. So kind." Margaret's hands shook. "And we just... we
just stopped seeing her. How did that happen? When did we stop seeing our daughter?"
Richard picked up a more recent photo, Camille and Stefan at their engagement party. Rose stood
beside them, smiling that perfect smile that had fooled them all.
"We saw what we wanted to see," he said. "Rose was so... perfect on the surface. She said all the right things,
did all the right things. She moved through our world like she was born to it." "Not like Camille," Margaret
whispered. "Who was messy and
real and questioned everything. Who didn't care about appearing in the society pages or impressing the right
people."
"We failed her." Richard's voice broke. "Our own daughter, and we chose a stranger over her."
Margaret closed her eyes, remembering Camille's face at Kane Industries three
weeks ago, cold and distant.
"Do you think she'll ever forgive us? Ever cback home?"
Richard didn't answer immediately. He gathered several
scattered photos, looking at each one with pain.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "The things
we said to her when she tried to tell us about Rose and Stefan... The way we doubted her, accused her of
jealousy and lying..."
"We can apologize," Margaret said desperately. "We can make it right."
"We already tried that at her
office. She looked at us like we were shareholders asking for a dividend
report. Like we meant nothing to her."
Fresh tears spilled down Margaret's cheeks. "That's not our Camille. Victoria Kane has turned her into someone
else."
"No,"
Richard said. "Our Camille died the night Rose tried to have her killed. The woman we met at Kane Industries,
that's who our daughter had to becto survive what was done to her. What was done to her wh Margaret
flinched but couldn't deny the
truth. She reached for a photo from Camille's wedding to Stefan. The three of them stood together, with Rose
visible at the edge, watching.
"Look how Rose is looking at her, even then. How did we not see it?"
"Because we didn't want to," Richard admitted. "Rose was the daughter we thought we wanted, agreeable,
socially perfect. Camille
was
always her own person, messy and real and... so much stronger than we ever gave her credit for."
Margaret sorted through more photos. So many pictures of Camille until age eleven, riding horses, reading
books, winning awards, making silly faces. Then, after Rose came, the images changed tically. Fewer
candid shots, more posed photos at charity events where Camille's smile didn't reach her eyes. "We lost her long
before
that night in the parking garage," Margaret realized. "We lost her starting the day Rose arrived. It happened bit
by
bit, every twe chose Rose's version over hers. Every
twe praised Rose's perfect manners while criticizing Camille."
Richard nodded. "And now she belongs to Victoria Kane."
"Do you think Victoria loves her? Actually loves her, not just uses her?"
"I don't know if Victoria Kane is capable of love the way we understand it. But she saw value in Camille
when we failed to. She gave her purpose, power, a new
identity when her old one was shattered."
"Because of Rose." Margaret's hands curled into fists. "Our 'perfect' daughter who tried to have
our real daughter killed."
"| keep thinking about that summer when Camille was ten," Margaret said after
a silence. She broke her
arm falling from her horse, and | slept in her room for a week. It was the last t| truly mothered her."
"She would wake up, and | would tell her stories until she fell back asleep. She
always wanted to hear about brave girls who fought dragons or solved mysteries. Never
princesses waiting to be rescued."
"She never needed rescuing," Richard said. "Until she did, and we weren't there."
"What do we do, Richard? How do we live with this?"
Richard looked around the room, at the mansion that had housed Lewis generations. His gaze settled on the
grand piano in the corner, untouched since Camille had last played it. "We start by facing the truth,"
he said. "About Rose. About ourselves. About what we allowed to happen."
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"And then?"
"Then we try to becthe parents she deserved. Not to win her back, she may never want
us in her life again. But because it's right."
Margaret looked at a photo of Camille at five, sitting in her lap as they read together.
"Will she ever chome?" she asked, her voice breaking.
"I don't know," Richard said honestly. "This may not be her hanymore. Victoria Kane's mansion, Kane
Industries, that may be where she belongs now."
"I can't accept that," Margaret whispered fiercely.
"Then don't. Fight for her. Not by pushing into her
life where we're not wanted, but by becoming people worthy of her forgiveness."
Margaret looked at the scattered evidence of the daughter they had failed.
"It might be too late," she said.
"It might be," Richard agreed. "But Camille never gave up on the things that mattered to her. If
she got that from anyone, she got it from you."
Margaret carefully closed the album, her fingers lingering on the embossed family crest. The room had grown
darker as the sun set. gone. But
"She won't cback to us as she was,"
Margaret said finally. "That Camille is maybe, someday, the woman she's
becmight find room in her life for the parents we should have been."
Richard helped her to her feet. Margaret placed the photo album
on the mahogany shelf, alongside dozens of others.
"I'm going
to write to her," Margaret decided. "Not asking for forgiveness. Not yet. Just... letting her know that we're here.
That we see her now. Really see her."
Outside, darkness had fallen. Bradford silently appeared to inform
them dinner was served. The mansion felt
hollow, each opulent room haunted by absences
and mistakes. But as Margaret looked at the photos one
last time, she felt something shift inside her, not forgiveness, not yet, but
perhaps the first step toward earning it.
"One day at a time," she whispered. "One truth at a time."
It wasn't the promise of her daughter's return. But for tonight, in a house emptied of certainties but filled with
wealth that suddenly meant nothing, it was somewhere to begin.
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