Chapter 309

KING “I’m so sorry for your loss. My condolences, Emmeline.” I listen to those words over and over again, and my mother soaks it all up. She shed a single, solitary tear during the service, allowing it to run all the way down her cheek before she daintily dabbed it away with her napkin. She is center stage today and loving it. She thrives on the attention. Predictably, my father uses the opportunity to network and connect with his old cronies. They make me sick. We’ve barely uttered a word to each other since the meeting at their lawyer’s office a few days ago, and they have given me nothing but contempt all day long. I suspect they wouldn’t have allowed me here to pay my respects if it wouldn’t have made them look bad. But it was a mistake coming to their house after the service. There were three people present today who actually loved my grandfather—Leonard, Amanda, and me. They both left after the service I planned, declining the offer to come to the exquisitely catered wake at my p