Page 26 of The Un-Apparent Heir

“We’ll go then.” Paul squeezed Sanne’s hand. “We should leave you anyway. Get rest, sister. Take care of yourself.”

“Thanks,” Natalie smiled a bit, unsure what to say.

“Call us if you need anything,” Sanne said sweetly. “We’re just five seconds away.”

“Thanks,” Natalie said.

They left. Ed shook his head. “When does it get easier?”

“When we have our own baby, Edwin.”

Natalie hoped that was the truth.

“Can I get you anything?” Sanne asked Lucy.

Lucy sat on a swing in her sister’s backyard in the north suburbs, out of it.

Lucy shook her head. Sanne wasn’t sure how to help. Lucy was near-silent this entire time. So, rather than gather with the rest of the family inside, she was kicking her feet up on the swing set outside in the cold. The wind smacked Sanne’s face.

“I don’t like that priest,” Lucy muttered.

“I don’t like priests at all. They make me nervous. I always wonder if they can tell I was raised by lesbians and are already damning me to hell.”

Lucy chuckled as Sanne sat on the other swing. “Nah. I doubt priests care that much. They’re more apt to try to gauge if they should stay here or if there is a guarantee that there will be top-shelf booze elsewhere.”

“Fair. I respect that.”

“I doubt this priest had any idea that any of us had money,” Lucy murmured. “We were always asking for a handout because Dad drank his life away. Mum was always so embarrassed to ask for help. I suppose that’s where I get it from.”

“Lucy, you’re a Countess. Did no one?—”

“Sanne, I know we sound alike. We grew up a stone’s throw from one another, but unlike you, I don’t have any relatives who would even understand what that means. And my father was embarrassed by my mere existence. Your parents always love you. They always think you’re perfect. The idea that we could even live in a house like this…”

Lucy gestured at the back of the small McMansion. “It’s a dream.”

“Nah. It’s generic as fuck,” Sanne said. “I would take our little cottage over this any day. I would take Linny’s historic home in Buffalo Shores 100 times. I’d take my old condo in River North. This… it’s soulless. It’s about showing you have money and can keep up. You are collecting swag when you move into a neighbourhood like this. It’s plastic. It’s sanitised.”

“Said like someone who was born wealthy,” Lucy murmured.

It took Sanne ages to understand Lucy was right. They were different people.

“I learned to keep up, but my ‘picker’ will always be off when it comes to cultural capital,” Lucy said. “I still get nervous when I see Winston throw out a tube of toothpaste that still has paste in it. No joke. I still worry we will run out of food. That’s the one that kills me. I have panic attacks trying to think about how to feed Malcolm. My therapist says that my childhood neglect will always kick in—even if I have nothing in the world to want for. You always had everything, Sanne. I don’t say it to be cruel, but I had no emotional support from my parents. My mother was incapable of functioning as she made up for my father’s lack of it. We had no money. We were always behind. You grew up with two mothers who spared you all those nasty details.”

Sanne rubbed Lucy’s arm. “It sounds hard, Lucy. You’re right, I have no idea. But you manage all this royal chaos. I owe you so much for all the help you’ve given me. I am sorry if that feels invalidating.”

“I don’t know why I’m so blue,” Lucy said. “It’s not because Dad died. I am relieved—as terrible as that sounds.”

“Luce, don’t beat yourself up. The way Winston tells it, he was a toxic human being.”

“Thanks. Thanks for just… letting me… feel. You and Natalie have just let me vent. George, too. I just needed that. I love you all. I always expect to be deserted because this is ugly or complicated, but… you never leave me. You never desert me—none of you do.”

“Family shows up,” Sanne said.

“I think it’s watching my mother’s heartbreak now. She’s been so tortured by him—beaten, making excuses, covering for him—for so many years. And yet? She’s here, losing her mind.”

“Everyone has complicated emotions. Your mother was a victim, too, but a lot of people have issues with codependency. Your parents were married for three decades, right? That’s a long time. Give her some space to feel, too. She cannot control how she grieves. You can only hope that she works on herself and makes her own life better.”

“I don’t even know what Mom will do.”

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