PART 2
“You can replace a wife,” I said quietly, looking directly at Daniel, “but you can’t replace the daughters who loved you before they understood what kind of man you were becoming.”
For the first time that morning, Daniel’s smug expression cracked.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Patricia saw it too.
She folded her arms and gave me the same thin smile she had perfected during eleven years of family dinners.
“Claire, don’t make this more dramatic than it needs to be.”
I looked at her.
Then at Daniel.
“I’m not.”
That was the strange thing.
I wasn’t angry anymore.
Anger had carried me through the nights when Daniel claimed he was working late while his credit-card statements showed expensive dinners across town.
Anger had kept me awake when Vanessa’s name appeared on his phone at 1:12 a.m.
Anger had burned inside me when Barbara Whitmore casually told Grace that perhaps her father would finally have “someone to carry on the family legacy.”
