Granger Lake House, July 2010
The Granger lake house smelled of pine needles, old books, and the faint, clean scent of lake water. It wasn't like Thomas Manor—there were no marble floors, no crystal chandeliers, no portraits of stern ancestors. The floors were wide-plank oak, worn smooth by generations of bare feet. The furniture was overstuffed and comfortable, the shelves were crammed with novels and board games, and the windows framed a view of glassy blue water and dark green pines.
For the first week, Jenny did nothing but breathe.
She slept in a sun-drenched bedroom with white curtains that billowed in the breeze. She ate when she was hungry, read books from the shelf until her eyes grew heavy, and swam in the cold, clear lake until her skin tingled. No one asked her to be anything. No one looked past her. Her grandmother Linda and step-grandfather Henry simply let her exist.
It was terrifying.
At Thomas Manor, her value was tied to what she could provide—good grades, proper behavior, a silent presence that didn't disrupt the perfect family tableau. Here, her value seemed to be… herself. And she didn't know who that was.
"You're thinking too hard," Linda said on the eighth morning, setting a mug of hot chocolate in front of Jenny on the screened porch. "Your brow is all furrowed. It's summer. You're sixteen. Furrowing is for November."
Jenny managed a small smile. "Habit."
Linda sat across from her, her own mug steaming. She was a handsome woman in her late sixties, with sharp green eyes and silver hair cut in a practical bob. She wore jeans and a faded university sweatshirt—a far cry from Anna Thomas's tailored suits.
"They didn't deserve you," Linda said quietly, not looking at her. "I should have taken you sooner. When you were small."
Jenny's throat tightened. She stared into her hot chocolate. "Why didn't you?"
A long silence. The loons called out on the lake, their cries lonely and beautiful.
"Your mother," Linda finally said, voice heavy. "She made her choice. She wanted that life. The money, the status, the Thomas name. I thought if I fought for you, I'd lose her completely. So I chose peace. And in doing so, I failed you."
The admission was so stark, so devoid of excuse, that Jenny didn't know how to respond. She was used to lies wrapped in pretty paper. This raw truth was disorienting.
"It's not your fault," she murmured, the automatic response.
"It is," Linda said firmly. "And I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you let me."
The offer hung between them. Simple. Sincere.
Jenny just nodded, sipping her drink, the sweetness spreading through her.
That night, a summer storm rolled in. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the wind picked up, making the old house creak and sigh. Jenny couldn't sleep. The sound of rain on the roof was unfamiliar, loud. At the manor, her room was in the back, insulated from weather.
She slipped out of bed, padding barefoot down the hall toward the kitchen for water. The floorboards were cool under her feet.
Voices drifted from the library—the room with the big stone fireplace and floor-to-ceiling books. Henry's low baritone, and Linda's, more strained than Jenny had ever heard it.
She paused, hidden in the shadow of the hallway.
"…can't keep it from her forever, Linda," Henry was saying. "She's not a child. She deserves to know the whole story."
"And tell her what?" Linda's voice was raw. "That her father was a drunk? That her mother married him because she was pregnant and her own family would have disowned her? That the entire foundation of her life is a lie built on shame?"
Jenny's breath caught. She pressed herself against the wall, cold seeping through her thin nightshirt.
"It's her history," Henry insisted gently. "She's already living with the consequences. She should know the causes."
A sob, quickly muffled. "I told Hailey not to marry him. I begged her. Jonas Thomas was a spoiled, selfish boy who'd never loved anyone but himself. But she was pregnant with Harry and Jenny, and her father… my first husband… he said she'd disgrace the family. That she had to marry Jonas to make it right."
Jenny's knees felt weak. She slid down the wall, sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around herself.
"The pregnancy forced the marriage," Linda continued, the words pouring out now, a flood held back for decades. "And then, on their wedding night, Jonas got so drunk he confessed he was in love with someone else. That artist, Jade. He said he'd only married Hailey because his mother forced him, because of the babies. Can you imagine? On your wedding night?"
Henry murmured something comforting, but Linda pushed on.
"And then, a year later, Jade shows up pregnant too. Giving birth the same day. Dying. And Anna Thomas, that ice queen, sees an opportunity. Bring the other baby into the house. Raise her as Hailey's. Keep the scandal quiet. And Hailey… my sweet, foolish Hailey… she agreed. To keep her position. To keep her 'family' intact. She agreed to raise her husband's mistress's child as her own, and in doing so, she had to distance herself from her own daughter. Because every time she looked at Jenny, she saw the reason her marriage was a prison. The child that forced her into that gilded cage."
The truth was a physical blow, knocking the air from Jenny's lungs.
She wasn't just neglected.
She was a symbol.
A living, breathing reminder of a wedding night betrayal, a forced marriage, a life of quiet desperation.
Her mother hadn't just loved Evelyn more. She'd resented Jenny's very existence.
"And Jonas?" Henry asked.
"Guilty," Linda spat the word. "Guilty over Jade's death. Guilty over trapping Hailey. So he pours all his affection onto Evelyn—Jade's daughter. The child of the woman he loved and destroyed. While his own daughter, the one who looks just like the wife he never wanted… he can barely look at her. It's the most tragic, selfish mess I've ever seen. And Jenny has paid the price every day of her life."
Silence, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the drumming rain.
Jenny sat on the cold floor, the words etching themselves into her bones.
A drunk.
A forced marriage.
A wedding night confession.
A mother's resentment.
A father's guilt.
She was the cage. The lock. The reason.
All of it.
She stood up silently, her body moving on autopilot. Back down the hall. Into her room. She closed the door and stood in the dark, watching the lightning flash outside the window, illuminating the furious lake.
The cold space inside her wasn't cold anymore. It was a void. A hollowed-out place where the story of her life had been, now scraped clean.
She walked to the mirror over the dresser. A pale girl with messy blonde braids and too-big eyes stared back.
Who are you?
The reflection had no answer.
She opened her duffel, pushed past clothes, and pulled out the poetry book. The photograph of Jade was tucked between pages of Emily Dickinson. She took it out, holding it under the light of the bedside lamp.
The woman smiled back, fearless, alive. Jade, Summer '93. Forever.
Her father's great love. The woman he'd chosen. The mother of the daughter he actually saw.
Evelyn had her eyes. Her hair. Her spirit, everyone said.
And Jenny… Jenny had her mother's eyes. The mother who resented her. Her father's chin, maybe, but on a face he couldn't bear to look at.
She was a patchwork of unwanted parts.
A sob rose in her throat, harsh and sudden. She clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling it. She wouldn't cry. She was done crying for them.
But the tears came anyway, hot and silent, sliding down her cheeks as she stared at the photograph of the ghost who'd shaped her life more than any living person.
She cried for the mother who saw her as a cage.
For the father who saw her as a mistake.
For the brother who tried but couldn't fix it.
For the sister who lived in the light of a stolen sun.
And she cried for herself. The girl who'd learned to be quiet, to be small, to ask for nothing, because nothing was what she'd always received.
When the tears finally stopped, her face was swollen, her head throbbed. She felt emptied out. Cleansed in a brutal, scraping way.
She placed the photograph back in the book. Closed it.
Then she went to the small desk by the window, took out a fresh notebook, and opened to the first page.
She didn't write about her feelings. She didn't write poetry.
She wrote facts.
Fact: Jonas Thomas married Hailey Granger because she was pregnant with me.
Fact: He loved Jade.
Fact: Jade died giving birth to Evelyn.
Fact: My mother resents me for being the reason she is trapped.
Fact: My father ignores me out of guilt.
Fact: Evelyn is the cherished daughter of both the dead woman and the guilty man.
Fact: I am the collateral damage.
She wrote until her hand ached, filling pages with the stark, ugly architecture of her family. No emotion. Just structure. Cause and effect.
By the time the storm passed and dawn painted the sky peach and gold, she had written her way to the final fact:
Fact: I do not belong to them. I never did. I belong only to myself.
She closed the notebook. A new story started here. Not the story of Jenny Thomas, the forgotten daughter.
But the story of Jenny. Just Jenny.
Whoever she decided to be.