Chapter 8 - SERENA’S REAL MOTIVE
Serena loved me.
That became harder, not easier, to accept.
She did not frame Lily for money.
She did not plan to steal Oliver.
She wanted Amelia gone from our future.
Impossible.
Amelia was Oliver’s mother.
But Serena believed secrets created a route back into my life.
Every photograph.
Letter.
Relative.
Old trust.
Now Lily.
A living blood connection to Amelia.
And worse:
Lily was the person Oliver trusted most after me.
Serena interpreted attachment as replacement.
She began telling herself Lily was manipulating him.
Then:
Lily was manipulating me.
Then:
Amelia had arranged everything to make sure Serena could never become Oliver’s real mother.
By the time she attacked Lily, Serena was no longer reacting to a nanny.
She was fighting a dead woman’s shadow.
That explained her cruelty.
Not excused it.
When I asked why she hit Lily, she eventually said:
“Because he kept reaching for her.”
“Oliver?”
“Yes.”
“He’s fourteen months old.”
“I know.”
“Then what did you think he was choosing?”
She started crying.
“Not me.”
That was the simplest answer in the entire story.
Serena wanted a toddler to validate her place.
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When he did not, she punished the adult he reached toward.
There was nothing Lily could have done correctly.
