By holding her responsible for the crimes her mother committed.
“Yes,” she says firmly. “And how do you think that was for her? Being Charlie’s daughter.”
That gives me pause. “What?”
“I don’t think it was easy, Alaric,” she says, her voice serious and low. “Being Charlie’s daughter. I don’t think they had a very good relationship. I don’t know everything, or anything really. Because she never told me, and whenever I tried to ask, she always evaded the question. But I don’t think Charlie was a very good mother to her. And then Charlie passed away so abruptly and she had to move to a different town. Live with strange people, with a new guardian who hardly looked at her, let alone talked to her. And yes, you had your reasons but I think it’s time to let her go. Maybe her grades or whatever it is you want her to have aren’t there but she’s survived a lot. She deserves a second chance. And whatever your reasons may be for taking on responsibility for her four years ago, you deserve to be free of it as well. And you have the power to make it happen. To set both of you free. Promise me that you’ll think about it, please?”
“I will,” I reply but I don’t even hear my own voice.
I don’t hear her hanging up the phone either.
Because I’m hearing something else. I’m listening to something else.
Laughter.
Streaming in through the barred windows.
Before I even turn to confirm, I know who that laughter belongs to.
I’ve heard it numerous times in the past. Ringing through the dead corridors of the mansion, my childhood home. Before every time I heard it, I would feel a sense of relief. Even though I didn’t deserve it. After what I did to her. But I would be able to go on about my day with a lightness that she was laughing. Maybe she was happy, in that moment, on that day.
Now I don’t think I’d be able to go on about my day like before.
Now it sounds like something musical, that laughter — no less happy though. Something that I would have to stop and listen to. Something… seductive.
Fuck.
I’m not supposed to think about her that way.
She’s my ward. My student.
She’s fucking eighteen years old.
But despite myself, despite the fact that I hate this uncontrollable urge, I turn back to the window.
And there she is.
Out in the courtyard.
Laughing.
Her midnight-colored hair blowing in the wind, her bangs fluttering. That’s the first thing I see.
The second thing is her hat.
A big purple hat with floppy sides that’s fluttering in the wind as well.
As she flies paper airplanes.
And every time it hits the target, usually another girl sitting either on those stone benches or on the ground, she throws her head back and laughs, clutching her hat.
She laughs with her whole body.
Her mouth, her hands, her bowed spine, her legs as she hops up and down with joy.
I don’t think it was easy, Alaric.
I hear Mo’s voice and I have to admit that I never thought about it.
About her life before she came to live in Middlemarch.
At first because I was so blinded by rage that I didn’t want to think about her. And then, because my guilt had sent me to Italy. The only solution that I could think of for what I’d done.
But if I had, if I had given it a little bit of thought, I may have figured it out.
I may have sensed that she didn’t have it easy with Charlie.
And if anyone knows about difficult things and relationships with one’s parents, it’s me.
So Mo is right.
I have all the power.
Something that I never had for the first half of my life. I never had control, respect, power, all the things that came naturally to my father, other people even. But never to me.
But now I have all of it in abundance.
So I should use it. For some good finally.
Especially when I know that her nightmares are back. That she’s all alone here, without friends.
Not to mention, that fucking boyfriend of hers. He’s out of her life now.
He is, isn’t he?
She can’t be that stupid.
Not after my warnings.
So yeah, there is no reason for me to keep her here. I can bend the rules for her. I can let her graduate today, give her the money as per the will so she can go wherever she wants to go. So she can do whatever she wants to do.
I owe her that.
After everything I’ve put her through.
I watch how her hair flows down her back, flies around her pale face. She’s the only one in the courtyard with her hair down and loose in the air. She’s the only one running around and not doing her work as she should be. She’s the only one disturbing other people’s peace.