Lillian touches her sister’s arm. “I understand. I really do.”
“How did you find out I’m Little?” Simone asks.
“I’ve known that a long time. I overheard you and Mom shouting about it the day she made you throw away your box. Plus, Mom and Dad discussed it very loudly several times. All I had to do was turn to Google to find out what it meant to be Little.”
Simone nods. “Were they mad when I left?”
Lillian shrugs. “Not really. When I came down to breakfast the next day, they just told me you were gone. They didn’t even seem surprised.”
“They were probably relieved,” Simone says.
Lillian’s brow is furrowed. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how alone you must have felt.” She looks down, staring at her hot cocoa.
Simone sets a hand over Lillian’s. “Why are you here, Lils?”
Lillian lifts her gaze, smiling. “You haven’t called me that since we were young.”
Simone chuckles. “Mom always got mad when I used that nickname with you. She was so formal.” Simone sits taller and schools her face. I suspect she’s about to imitate their mother. “I named you girls Simone and Lillian. Not Mony and Lils. Stop calling each other that.”
Good thing I’m not holding a cup of cocoa or I would have spewed it all over the table. “Mony?”
Simone cringes before narrowing her gaze at me. “Wipe that from your head, Daddy. I hate it. Don’t call me that.”
“You didn’t hate it when we were toddlers,” Lillian points out.
“I didn’t know what it meant then. Later, when kids started making fun of me, singing it to me, it drove me crazy.”
Lillian shrugs. “By then, Mom had beaten it out of us.”
My eyes widen. “She beat you?”
Both girls shake their heads.
“Not literally,” Simone says.
Lillian sighed. “Sometimes I wished she would. A beating would have been easier than the other things we endured.”
I grit my teeth. I don’t like hearing that my girl had a rough childhood. It just goes to show that money doesn’t buy happiness.
Lillian draws in a deep breath. “After you left, Mom shifted the burden of carrying on the family legacy completely to my shoulders. If I thought she was in my face before you left, I had no idea what was coming.”
“I’m so sorry, Lils,” Simone whispers.
“For a long time, I was mad at you. It wasn’t fair, but you were the oldest, and you absorbed most of their attention. Once you left, Mom turned into this intense ball of fire.”
“More intense?” Simone asks. She’s not laughing.
“Ten times worse. I think she feared her only remaining legacy would fail her. She was always in my business, following me wherever I went, asking me questions, making sure I was presenting myself as the proper debutante at all times.”
Simone groans. “That had to suck.”
“Well, it got worse. She started nagging me about getting married.”
“Married?” Simone shouts. “You’re twenty-one.”
“I was nineteen when this started.”
“Did she pick out a husband for you, too?” Simone asks sarcastically.
