Chapter 31

I marked the days off the calendar as one week turned into two, and it was now three weeks since I had wrapped the rag around step-mother's arm. Elizabeth would definitely have changed. I pushed that thought aside for something far more cheerful, as Henry's twentieth birthday arrived and Hazel came for dinner.

I liked Hazel. She was a woman who knew what she wanted from life. Henry still didn't talk much, but he smiled and laughed on occasion, and I would be eternally grateful to her for bringing that change to him. Hazel pulled Henry from the nightmare that had consumed him for so long and gave him new dreams.

Alice and I decorated our little dining room with strings of tinsel we found in the Christmas decorations box. Father was well enough to sit at the head of the table, and I couldn't imagine a better evening. Well, apart from intimate dinners in libraries. We gave Henry a box of oils and canvases, but Hazel had the best present?an application form for the Royal Academy of Arts