PART 1
“You’re in the way now, Grandma, and you honestly should have died years ago.”
That was what my granddaughter Delilah screamed at me in front of twenty-three shocked guests right before she slapped me so hard across the face that my lip split wide open during my seventieth birthday dinner.
I fell heavily against the dark walnut sideboard in the main dining room, feeling my body hit the solid wood with a dull thud. My reading glasses shattered into tiny pieces beneath me, and the ivory silk blouse I had bought specifically for this celebratory evening was instantly ruined with spots of deep crimson blood.
Nobody made a single move to help me up right away. Neither her husband’s wealthy parents, nor her socialite friends, nor her husband’s business partners took a step forward.
They all stood completely frozen in place, staring at me as if they had just witnessed a dramatic scene from a trashy television show, unsure whether they were expected to applaud or call an emergency ambulance.
My name is Henrietta Vance, though most people in our neighborhood of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia respectfully address me as Mrs. Vance. For over forty years, I painstakingly built Vance Publishing from a humble little rented storefront near Pine Street into one of Pennsylvania’s most respected independent literary houses.
My only daughter, Rebecca, passed away from aggressively cruel cancer when she was just thirty-nine years old. She left behind Delilah, an eight-year-old girl with blonde braids, a pristine school uniform, and a rag doll she refused to let go of even when taking a warm bath.
From that devastating moment forward, I willingly became her legal guardian, her grandmother, her mother, her father, and her permanent safe harbor in a chaotic world.
I happily paid for her elite private schooling, expensive classical ballet lessons, summer trips to Cape Cod, her undergraduate degree at Georgetown, and her prestigious master’s program in London. When she married Lucas, the ambitious son of a wealthy corporate family from Baltimore, I freely gave them the substantial down payment for a sprawling home in Potomac.
When she expressed a desire to establish her own literary representation business, I allocated a multimillion-dollar fund directly to her and officially appointed her as the executive vice president of my publishing house.
On that fateful evening, my birthday party was held inside my traditional stone manor in Chestnut Hill, the exact house where she had spent her entire childhood. The caterers had prepared roasted prime rib, butternut squash soup, fine American wines, and a magnificent cream cake that I had carefully selected myself weeks earlier.
Delilah arrived forty minutes late to the gathering, wearing a shimmering gold evening dress, absurdly high heels, and the diamond bracelet I had gifted her for her thirtieth birthday. She did not offer me a warm hug, nor did she bother to wish me a happy birthday as she swept into the crowded room.
She simply scanned the large dining room with cold eyes, acting as though every single item in the house already legally belonged to her.
When everyone finally sat down for dinner, I immediately noticed that my delicate brass place card had been deliberately moved to another position. I was naturally supposed to sit at the head of the long table, but Delilah had arrogantly taken my seat and left me sitting at the far end right next to the swinging kitchen door.
