She paused. And then she shrugged, and the shrug was everything, the culmination of the word wasteful and the questions about bedrooms and the listings for rental companies and the conversation about renovations that Eleanor had apparently not been meant to overhear but had.
“It’s a bit selfish, don’t you think? Holding onto all this space when you hardly use it.”
There it was. Clear as a window wiped clean.
Eleanor felt the last of her hesitation detach and dissolve.
“I said,” she replied, “ask them to leave.”
Megan crossed her arms.
“Or what? You’ll throw out your own family? After everything Robert does for you?”
Eleanor held her gaze.
“My son does not do anything for me that I have not already arranged and paid for myself.”
“That’s not how it looks,” Megan said, her voice sharpening. “From where I’m standing, you’re sitting on a property you barely use while people who could actually enjoy it go without. That’s not generosity. That’s—”
She stopped herself for one brief second. Then let the word come anyway.