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My mother refused to go home.

She'd decided she was owed something and intended to get it. Lily, helpfully, made her case: mother and daughter, no grudge could survive good intentions, these things always sort themselves out in the end.

"When I was at university," I said pleasantly, "and the bursary money ran out, where were you? When Diana's money was going to your rent and your clothes and the packages you sent back to your family — where were you?"

Lily's colour changed.

She cried and said she didn't know what she'd done to deserve this, now that I had money and standing. Bryce, unable to watch his pregnant wife in distress, asked me to think about Lily's childhood, about the circumstances she'd come from.

I was about to respond.

Caroline Harrington appeared at my shoulder.

She'd heard enough.

Caroline was efficient in a way that came from having grown up around power and understood exactly how it worked. She made one phone call and severed a business relationship the Calloway family depended on. She made a second call and had word sent to the independent secondary school in Bristol that Diana Hartley's position was no longer suitable.

My mother turned on Caroline.

"You think money entitles you to treat people like disposable parts? I'll post about this. I'll tell everyone what your family is."

Caroline met her with the expression of someone who has heard this particular threat before.

"The money my mother-in-law placed on the table twenty-five years ago — the sum Diana took with her when she left Gerald's mother on the floor — we have records of that transfer. The full amount, with interest, is recoverable. Civil action is straightforward." She paused. "Would you like me to calculate what that comes to?"

My mother's face went blank.

She looked at me.

I looked back.

I didn't help her.