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"Was he that bad?"

Claire sighed and grabbed a strawberry off Eleanor’s plate Eleanor pretended to stab her hand with the fork

"You want to kno bad he was?" Claire asked

"Probably not, but tell ot all this fro to me"

"It’s Latin for brother Soror is Latin for sister That’s what he and I call each other--Frater and Soror He says he hates the naht And this is why he hates the name, and this is why I’m not sad my father’s dead"

Claire took a deep breath, kicked off her black ballet flats and curled up against the back of the couch

"My father is … was a very bad person My irl"

"He hit her?"

"Worse"

Eleanor’s heart stopped beating for a few seconds

"Oh, fk"

"Elizabeth’s ot married in the sixties, divorced in the seventies Everyone kept stuff like that a secret Then he met my mom and married her They had otten remarried and had me She didn’t knohat to do so she wrote a letter to Frater"

"What did he do?" Eleanor was careful to not call Søren "Søren" Apparently Claire didn’t know his real naht herhis real name than his own baby sister

"This is what Mom told me She said it was late Noveone on one of his business trips Mo one afternoon and she answered it And standing on the front porch was, and these are her words, ‘a blond angel’"

"A blond angel?"