Though I could have walked away in that very moment and never looked back, that wouldn’t have worked in my favor. I couldn’t just leave, not when I knew I had just as much leverage over her as she had over me.
I walked into the mansion, and Lola was sitting by the pool in an orange bathing suit. She just sat there beneath the sun like nothing had ever happened—like she hadn’t just told me the night before that she didn’t care about me or my baby, who was now gone.
She heard me walk out and sat up on the chair. “Oh, Georgia! I’m so glad you’re back home safe, girl!”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Me too.”
She stood and came in my direction. “Listen, I’m sorry about last night. I was stressed and had too many drinks and I let my words and actions get the better of me.”
I didn’t say anything to that. That was more than her actions getting the better of her.
“I know miscarrying is hard. Trust me, it’s a horrible pain. Losing something you love instantly and unconditionally.” She sighed. “But . . . take this with a grain of salt. Do what I did and let it empower you.”
Empower me? Wow. She called herself empowered? She was anything but. She was a straight-up piece of shit.
“So, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go upstairs and take a long, hot bath, and when you’re done, come back down and I’ll have a nice meal ready for you.” She turned me around, and I trudged ahead, but before I could disappear, I looked over my shoulder at her. “Go on,” she murmured. “I have to go meet Faith in a bit, but I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
I did take the bath, and I did sit there for a long time. A very, very long time. The water was cold and cloudy by the time I got out. I didn’t sit there and wallow, though. No, if anything, Lola was right about not doing that. I couldn’t accomplish anything by wallowing about a baby I’d lost, no matter how much I’d loved the idea of becoming a mother. But what I could do was change the course of my future so that I wouldn’t suffer again.
So you want to know what I did? When Lola left to meet Faith, I went out to the shed by the pool. I grabbed one of Dr. Maxwell’s golf clubs and took it back to the house, then I stomped up the marble staircase and walked right into Lola’s thinking room.
There was her chandelier—the most prized possession in the house. She’d been in awe of that stupid chandelier since she’d bought it. She’d told me a million times that it was an embodiment of her. It was a representation of her hard work, a treasure. She’d bought it shortly after opening her charity, with her first check from a donor. She was proud of this chandelier that was worth twenty thousand dollars.
And you know what I did?
I lifted the golf club above my head and slammed the end of the club right into the crystals of the chandelier. I swung at it over and over again, like a kid bashing a piñata, and I have to say, it was fun. Hella fun.
The chandelier fell eventually, crashing down on the waxed floor. I felt just like a lucky kid, then—as if I’d broken the piñata open and revealed all the delicious candy inside.
I was sick of Lola telling me what to do—sick of her for ruining my life. If she’d let me go to the hospital as soon as possible, I wouldn’t have lost the baby to begin with. Clyde had even said I should have gone to the hospital as soon as I felt pain, but I was so consumed with helping Lola for the party and doing my damn job that I decided against it.
I suppose I should blame myself for that, but Lola wouldn’t have let me leave anyway.
She came back home just in time for dinner, as she said she would, and I told her I’d heard something crash in her thinking room and discovered that the chandelier somehow had fallen and crashed.
She was mortified. Hysterical. She started blaming the staff—the maid who had been on duty earlier that day. She fired that maid and for that I truly was sorry. Coco was a good maid . . . but she’d find another job, I was sure.
I told her I’d clean up the mess, get rid of it, and I swear I saw tears in her eyes as she stared down at her broken crystal treasure. She was obsessed with that chandelier, honestly. She really saw it as a piece of her ice-cold heart.