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am not so sure that is what you really want,” her mother told her.
    “You are very perceptive for a sick, demented woman. Now what’s really going on?” Annabella wanted to know.
    “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you and Warrenton are in love ,” Eudora innocently replied.
    “I’m not saying you are a genius. I am just implying that maybe you are not as sick as you let on. Mother, why are you here if you are well enough to meddle in my affairs? You should be at home making my life miserable, not doing it remotely,” Annabella teased her mother.
    “I am here because this is w here your father wants me to be,” the woman reluctantly explained to her daughter.
    “That is preposterous! Daddy would never put you away unless you were incapacitated. Why would you say such an awful thing?” Her daughter wanted to know.
    “Anna, I know it is hard for you to believe, but you r father is tired of me. Yes, he loves me but I just don’t fit into his life anymore. I don’t blame him though. It is actually my fault. You know, when I was in college, I had a Persian friend named Farrah. She said her mother used to get out of doing routine chores by claiming to be ill. In her culture, it was the only way a woman was excused from her wifely duties. So, Farrah’s mother would claim illness whenever it suited her. She would feign anything from a standard cold to female issues. She had done it for years until one day she actually became ill. Her father quickly divorced her and took a young, healthy wife. Farrah never got over how her father neglected her mother, but she also knew the role her mother played in her ultimate neglect. The point of this story is that you can get away with something for so long, and then it comes back to you exponentially. She probably never anticipated that she would end up alone. Just like me.”
    “What are you saying, Mother? You pretended to be sick and you ended up here?”
    “Annabella, being the wife of a well-known minister was a difficult life. I was always expected to show up at functions, perform community service, visit the sick and shut in. There was so much responsibility. Most of the time, I simply did not want to do it. So, I would pretend that I forgot to do this or forget about that, and so on. Well, eventually, I really started forgetting things and soon your father decided to have me placed under observation. Well, once you enter this place, there is no getting out. Your father is an insanely wealthy man and this institution did not want to forgo any future payments they would receive for services rendered. So, they always found something wrong with me, some reason to keep me. The months turned into years and fast forward to now, I am still in this place. I may be fine, but they are never going to let me out. It doesn’t matter, though, because your father doesn’t even want me anymore. He never comes to visit and he hardly writes. He just keeps paying the bills and sending money. That’s it. So, do you see why it doesn’t matter whether or not I am well enough to go home? The fact is that I don’t have a home to go to. No one needs me. I have outlived my own usefulness.”
    “That’s nonsense, mother. I need you.”
    “No, you don’t need me. You have Hattie. She has always been more like a mother to you than I have. You see, that is just one more thing that I didn’t feel like doing. So, I outsourced it.”
    “Mother, don’t do this to yourself. Lots of people hire nannies. That doesn’t make you less of a mother,” Annabella tried to console her.
    “No, that doesn’t make me less of a mother. There are plenty of things I did wrong that make me less than a mother. I appreciate that you still visit me after never really being there for you.”
    “Hattie is wonderful and I do love her, but she did not give birth to me. If nothing else, you did that. So, you will always have my devotion,” Annabella assured her mother.
    “Thank you, Dear. Now, let