Glass Slippers [1st Draft]

7. Father (Part Two)

7. Father (Part Two)

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In the morning, Clara returned to her father's room immediately following breakfast, not wishing to be around her step-sisters' loud, inconsiderate chatter or her own siblings' stiff silence. Even James had been silent that morning, he hadn't put up a single fuss or did his usual of asking questions about everything he put his eye on.

The person in the strangest mood, though, was by far her stepmother. On a normal morning, she would be talking with her daughters quite contentedly, but that morning she'd opted for snapping at them to be quiet before going silent herself.

Only Estella had the grace to look apologetic, as Edina just scowled, annoyed at their mother for cutting into their discussion on gowns.

Clara let out a worried sigh as she felt her father's forehead. His fever had worsened overnight. Her face lined with a frown, Clara once again placed a cool cloth on his forehead.

It was around mid-morning when he began to stir.

"Father?" She asked in a hushed tone, not wanting to startle him. Bloodshot gray eyes opened to look at her, and for a moment his face was lined with confusion before recognition set in.

"Clara, my darling, how you've grown," he said, his voice cracking. Clara frowned.

"Father, what do you mean? You just saw me yesterday, remember? You said I looked like Mother."

"You always look like your mother," he stated. His eyes darted around the room, not once landing for more than a second anywhere. "Where is she? Why isn't she with me?" Clara swallowed a lump in her throat before answering.

"She is not here right now, Father, she hasn't been here for a while," she said, trying not to let her own voice crack with emotion.

"What do you mean? Where is my wife? Where is she?"Her father was becoming increasingly distressed and Clara was floundering for an answer when suddenly someone else entered the room.

"I am right here," Linette said, coming forward to place a hand on Clara's father's arm, but he yanked his arm back as if he was burned.

"You are not my wife! Where is my Katherine?" Clara could only watch in barely contained distress as Linette's face drained of all color. She waited for the snap, the imminent shout of indignation, but it never came. Instead, a single tear dropped down Linette's cheek before she turned on her heel and stumbled out of the room. Clara watched her go before turning back to her raving father.

"Father, father!" She tried to talk to him. "Calm down, I will be right back. How about later I bring you Harriet and Amelia, hmm? Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Yes," he said, seeming to relax. "That would be nice, but I must wait to see Katherine first. I can not see anyone before Katherine."

"Okay, I'll be right back." With that Clara rushed out of the room, but instead of going to look for her sisters, she looked for someone else, her stepmother.

Under normal circumstances, Clara would be content to let her stepmother be by herself, but she felt guilty, even if it wasn't her fault. No one deserved to be talked to in the way her father just spoke to Linette.

She finally found her standing outside on the back porch. Her shoulders were hunched and shaking, but Clara could see that she was not crying. Linette seemed somehow past the point of tears.

"Linette?" She asked, and the woman turned to her, her eyes red and face still a deathly pale.

"What? Have you come to gloat?"

"No, I've come to see if you were alright," Clara paused, turning her own gaze away from Linette's to the swirling snow that was still coming down. "I'm sorry he said that. The fever, it's made him delusional, he never would have-"

"Said that? Yes, he would've. In fact, he says something of the sort almost every night in his sleep," Linette said, her voice hard. "Why are you out here? To comfort me? Me, the woman who came to take the place of your beloved mother?" She practically spat the last two words, and Clara was surprised at how her tone was tinged with both bitterness and sadness.

"I am the woman who came here and turned your world upside down, I know it, you know it. I came here hoping for a loving husband and perhaps a new family that I could foster and care for. I came here for children that would need my help and my guidance and my steady hand to help them grow." Linette gave a bitter laugh. "I didn't get anything I expected."

"Linette-"

"Don't interrupt. I know you think you have it worse, that I am the monster, the villain, but I am not. You made me into this evil stepmother, but it was not I who made the decisions necessary for us to come down this course."

"This is not my fault! If you didn't want to be this way, you should've tried harder to understand us, to understand my siblings. And if you hadn't said anything about Mrs. Landon we wouldn't have done anything!"

"You mean your sisters wouldn't have done anything." Clara stared back at her in pure shock. She knew?

"Tell me, Clara, did it ever occur to you to let your sisters take the blame?" Clara couldn't find the right words to form an answer.

"You think you are so different from me, but really we are quite similar. You lie to others for the sake of the ones you love, and I lie to myself for the sake of my loved ones." Linette turned back to the snow, her back straight as a rod.

Clara simply stared at the woman standing in front of her, not knowing what to do or say. It was like she was seeing her for the first time. She hesitantly reached out a hand to touch Linette's shoulder, to offer some sort of comfort. Could she have been wrong, all this time? But as her hand was about to touch her, Linette shifted away, pulling her arms tightly around her stomach.

"Leave me," Linette whispered, and Clara's hand dropped. She took a step backward before running back inside the house, not needing to be told twice. She dashed into the upstairs hallway and back into her father's room, only to see he was already back to sleep.

She sat with him for another hour, until she decided the room was too stuffy for either her father's health or her own crowded mind. After opening the window, she sat back down, only to stiffen as the sound of crying came in through the window. She didn't have to look through the window to know whose cries it was.

Clutching onto the last piece of her family life before her mother's death, Clara fell asleep with her head draped over one of her father's hands a few hours later. She only woke when a hand touched the top of her head the following morning.

That morning she got another embrace from Mrs. Landon and two days later she would get another while dressed from head to toe in black because her father had passed in the night. The last word that left his lips, as far as Clara knew, was the name of his dead wife.

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So what do you guys think? Is Linette evil or just misunderstood? Tell me in the comments!