The Woman Behind the Silver Tray
Chapter 03 - The Woman Behind the Silver Tray
Ava did not answer in the ballroom. She carried Lily through the service doors while Lucas followed and Victoria demanded that he return to the stage. The kitchen staff pretended not to watch. Nobody succeeded.
In a quiet linen room, Ava set Lily on a folded tablecloth and checked her breathing. The child was frightened but not wheezing. Ava brushed loose hair from her face and forced a reassuring smile.
“You did nothing wrong,” she said.
“I heard the crash. I thought you got hurt.”
“I know.” Ava kissed her forehead. “You were brave. Now I need you to wait with Ms. Rosa in the kitchen.”
Lily glanced at Lucas standing in the doorway. “Is he the friend from the picture?”
“Yes.”
“Why does he look sad?”
Because I broke his heart, Ava thought. Because his mother broke mine. Because adults can bury the truth and still act surprised when a child digs it up.
After Rosa led Lily away, Lucas closed the door. For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
“You had a child,” he said at last.
“I had a daughter.”
“And you never told me.”
“I tried.”
Lucas laughed once, without humor. “Eight years, Ava. No call. No letter. Nothing.”
“I sent three letters to your apartment in Boston. One to your office. I called until your number was disconnected.”
His anger shifted into confusion. “My mother told me you refused to speak to me. She showed me a note saying you wanted money to stay away.”
Ava felt the old humiliation rise. “I never wrote that.”
Lucas stepped back as if she had struck him.
Eight years earlier, Ava had worked as an assistant house manager at the Whitmore estate. She and Lucas had planned to move to Boston after he completed graduate school. Then Victoria’s diamond bracelet disappeared during a family dinner. It was found in Ava’s locker. Victoria offered a choice: leave the state before sunrise or face arrest and watch Ava’s sick father lose the medical assistance Victoria controlled through a family foundation.
Ava left. Two weeks later, she learned she was pregnant.
“I was twenty-two, broke, and terrified,” Ava said. “Your mother knew where I was. She sent someone to my father’s hospital room with papers promising his bills would be covered if I disappeared.”
Lucas’s face hardened. “Do you have those papers?”
“No. I signed under pressure, and her attorney took every copy.”
The door opened. Victoria stood there, perfectly composed again.
“You are making a serious mistake, Lucas.”
May you like
He turned toward her.
“No, Mother,” he said. “I think I made it eight years ago.”
