Sixth Street ✓

Friday 20th December ~ Part One

It was six o'clock when Lucinda was rudely awakened from her sleep. Penelope marched into her mother's bedroom, switching the light on so a bright glow was cast down upon the space. A girl on a mission, she headed straight over to the connecting door to George's bedroom and locked it, before turning to her mother and yanking the silk covers off her bed.

"Penelope..." Lucinda blinked in protest against the light that hit her harshly, struggling to form a coherent thought in her post-sleep daze. "What the hell..."

Penelope's red hair shone even more brightly against her pre-make-up skin, her eyes wide and fretful, framed against large purple bags from lack of sleep. Her arms were crossed across her chest, her bare foot tapping against the floor insistently, still dressed in a skimpy tank top and checked shorts that provided little relief in the December conditions. "I want to know." She snapped. "You need to tell me."

Lucinda's delicate features twisted into an ugly scowl. "I explained it to you already. The man who shot you, David Letterman, was my ex-husband. The police interviewed him, and it turns out he wanted to ransom you in order to get back together with me. He has many mental health issues brought on by me leaving him, so his lawyers will most likely plead instantly charges against our prosecution of him."

Penelope hated her mother for how simply she put things, laying out the cold, bare facts of the case. Penelope had been shot. She'd been in a coma. And now, when things should be all better, all she could think about was being shot.

"That's not what I meant." It felt good to correct Lucinda, to establish some sort of power over this conversation. "Tell me why you left him in the first place."

She could tell by her mother's faltering expression she had caught her off-guard, and the thought of shaking Lucinda the Ice Queen bought her some small sense of satisfaction. "You know why I left him." This time, she did not go on to provide a further explanation; her lips were tightened, refusing to speak, set in a prim straight line.

"Of course I know." Penelope scoffed. She was Ivy League bound, and was by no means stupid. "I just want to hear you say it."

Lucinda straightened her back, and when she replied, her voice had regained its usual coldness. "Fine. I left David for your father because I wanted to have a rich, privileged lifestyle. I never loved your father, and he never loved me, but each of us had the thing the other wanted most. He had wealth and celebrity connections, and I had the ability to carry the child he'd always longed for. I've never once regretted my decision, and look at me. Now, I'm Mrs Westerfield, and I practically own the social ladder."

Penelope had always guessed what her mother's main priority in life was, but she'd never heard it declared so blatantly before. Thoughts of deceased father trapped in a loveless marriage because of his love for Penelope nearly made her choke, but like a true daughter of Lucinda's she pushed her feelings down. "Did you love David?" There was no point even asking if she loved George, her third husband, because all of Sixth Street knew they'd only married to combine into the ultimate power, even if nobody dared admit it aloud. "Was he the love of your life?"

Lucinda paused, but she must have decided no harm could come from Penelope having the final piece of information seeing as she already knew so much. "Yes." She answered. "But love doesn't fix all solutions. Love isn't enough. David was poor, and I couldn't be poor. We could never be together, and he couldn't accept it."

"Mom?" Penelope's voice came out as small and vulnerable as she'd ever heard it, but she couldn't help asking one final, desperate question, even though she knew the answer wasn't the one she craved. "Do you love me?"

Lucinda's only response was, "You're my daughter." But Penelope knew that for Lucinda, that meant making her look good, making her look kind and warm and maternal. It didn't mean that she even so much as liked Penelope, and she certainly didn't love her the way her father had.