Chapter 68

"I have no standing with which to offer advice on love." Miriam sipped her own coffee daintily. She wore gray wool trousers, a pink twin set and a strand of fat, gleaming pearls, making Anissa feel underdressed in her jeans and fuzzy blue sweater. Anissa still admired her mother's grace and elegance, still felt as though she would never measure up. "I believed my own father for hundreds of years when he told me that my lover had fled rather than face fatherhood and marriage. All the while my father had kept him imprisoned in a jewel."

She sighed deeply. "And when that same father took my daughter and gave her away, I barely protested, let alone fought. It took me many, many years to grow up. You have no idea how much I regret that, my daughter. This fine strong woman you have become is none of my doing and yet I could not be more proud. Or sorrier for not preventing your enslavement at the outset."