Chapter 7 - The Strike Below the Ribs
For three seconds, Marlene stood frozen, holding the cashmere blanket like an unwanted bundle of laundry. The illusion of her perfection was cracking, splintering into ugly, jagged pieces.
The women in the room were staring in horror. Some covered their mouths. Aunt Clara looked as though she might faint.
Marlene’s eyes narrowed into slits. The sweet, grieving widow vanished entirely, replaced by something ancient and venomous. She leaned forward over the mahogany podium, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper that sliced right through the silence.
"You arrogant, ungrateful little girl," Marlene snarled.
"Mom, shut your mouth," Levi warned, stepping directly into her space.
Marlene ignored him, fixing her gaze entirely on me, digging her fingernails into the cashmere fabric.
"Your mother would be utterly ashamed of you, Joanna," Marlene said, each word dripping with venomous deliberate intent. "Eleanor was a woman of breeding. She knew what respect meant. She knew what family honor meant. But you? You have no grace. Eleanor raised a bitter, selfish child, and if she were alive today, she would weep at the sight of you."
The air left my lungs as if I had been punched squarely in the solar plexus.
My mother, Eleanor, had died six years ago after a brutal, fourteen-month battle with ovarian cancer. She was the gentlest soul I had ever known—a public school teacher who had spent her life protecting others, whose hand I had held in the hospice room until her very last shallow breath.
To hear her name dragged into the mud of Marlene’s vindictive ego felt like hot acid poured directly into an open wound.
Before I could speak, before I could even draw breath, Camille lunged forward.
"Say her name again, Marlene," Camille hissed, her face inches from my mother-in-law’s, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. "Say Eleanor’s name one more time in this room, and I swear to God you will leave this country club in an ambulance."
"Camille, no!" I gasped, grabbing my sister's arm to hold her back.
Levi looked at his mother with an expression of pure, unadulterated revulsion. "You're done, Mom. You are completely, totally done."
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"Get out!" Marlene shrieked, dropping the blanket onto the floor as her composure broke entirely. "Get out of my event! Get out of this club! You ruin everything! Both of you!"
***
