Chapter 8 - The Little Girl With the Rabbit
People kept asking me when Delilah became cruel.
There was no date.
At eight, after Rebecca died, she slept beside me for six weeks.
At nine, she refused to attend a school Mother’s Day event.
We drove to Cape May instead.
At twelve, she won a writing contest and made me read the certificate four times.
At fifteen, she humiliated another girl at school.
I grounded her.
At seventeen, she spent summer in Vance Publishing mailroom and complained every day.
At twenty-one, she called me from Georgetown because she thought a B-plus meant she had ruined her future.
At twenty-four, she came home from London sharp, ambitious, brilliant.
At twenty-five, she joined Vance Publishing.
She was genuinely talented.
That matters.
She helped expand foreign rights.
Pushed audiobooks earlier than I would have.
Found authors older editors ignored.
Built strong relationships with agents.
By twenty-nine, she deserved vice president.
Not because I loved her.
Because she was good.
Then praise changed shape.
A trade magazine called her “Heiress Apparent.”
She framed it.
I laughed.
I should have corrected the phrase.
Not because I could predict crime.
Because it was inaccurate.
Another article wrote:
“Vance Publishing prepares for its third generation.”
There was no third-generation plan.
Rebecca had never run the company.
Delilah began treating media assumption as promise.
When I suggested she spend more time learning production and finance, she said I was delaying.
When I proposed hiring a professional CEO someday while she served as publisher/chair candidate, she heard humiliation.
Then Lucas arrived.
He was charming.
He spoke fluent capital.
He told her:
“You should not wait until seventy for permission to become yourself.”
A dangerous sentence because half of it was true.
She did need identity outside me.
He turned that need toward control.
Then my own guilt.
At seventy, I entered therapy for the first time.
Dr. Elaine Porter asked:
“Do you believe paying for Delilah’s education created her entitlement?”
“Maybe.”
“Would every child who received those gifts commit fraud?”
“No.”
“Then gifts are context, not cause.”
I hated sensible people.
Then:
“Why do you keep trying to find something you caused?”
Because if I caused it, maybe I could have prevented it.
Choice is harder.
Then she asked:
“What do you miss?”
I answered immediately.
“The eight-year-old.”
“Does she still exist?”
“No.”
“That is grief.”
Not death.
Change.
I cried.
Then Delilah’s letters shifted.
One said:
I remember the rabbit.
The stuffed rabbit she carried when Rebecca died.
I remember thinking if I kept it close, Mom might come back.
Then:
I think I did the same thing with Vance Publishing. I thought if I owned enough of it, I would own something Mom left behind.
That stopped me.
Rebecca had worked at Vance briefly.
Publicity.
Editing.
She loved books but never wanted leadership.
Delilah had turned company into proof of maternal continuity.
I had never understood.
Then:
I hated that the company felt more yours than hers.
There.
Not only greed.
Not only Lucas.
Grief shaped entitlement but did not excuse it.
I wrote:
Rebecca was your mother. Vance Publishing was my company. Those facts were never in competition.
Weeks later:
I didn’t know how to believe that.
Then I looked through old company photographs.
Rebecca at twenty-two with advance copies stacked around her.
Rebecca laughing at a company picnic.
Rebecca holding baby Delilah in the old warehouse office.
I made digital copies.
Sent them.
No explanation.
Delilah called Martin from prison? She couldn't call me directly maybe later approved. Let's say she wrote.
I have never seen these.
I assumed she had.
Again.
Assumptions.
Then:
Thank you.
That was all.
May you like
The company was no longer the only physical proof her mother had existed inside my life.
And when Delilah eventually came home from prison, that small stack of photographs would matter more to her than twelve percent of Vance Publishing.
