Chapter 3
22 years earlier—10 Years Old
My upper thigh stings as I struggle to hobble inside. The icy trickle of blood oozing down my leg is nothing compared to the gash in my heart and the sting of tears in my eyes. I fling the patio door open, then slam it shut, the glass responding with a violent tremble in my wake. Mom is quick to reprimand; early proof no one will be on my side today.
“Vivian Jane! Do you mean to shake the entire place to sticks?”
I don’t listen to the scolding. My knuckles push hard into my cheeks, brushing fat tears away with force. “He did it again, Mom.” I point outside to the boy sitting on the covered, concrete patio, laughing in hysterics.
Laughing at the pain and injury he’s just caused.
Mom rolls her eyes. “Oh, Vivie, not this again.”
The rebuke cuts my heart worse than the horsewhip that’s been brought to my leg. My mouth falls open. “But, Mom—”
“Mom, nothing,” she throws back, glaring. “That’s your brother out there.”
“No,” I grumble. “He’s not. Lonnie isn’t—”
“Yes. He. Is.” Harsh, angry lines score at the corners of her mouth and eyes. They vanish as she sighs in disgust. “You’re whining again. You always do after you see him.”
“You mean, Grandpa?”
“Yes. Your visits will have to be limited.”
My eyes widen, and I blink back fresh tears. “I only see him once a week.”
“That’s still too much. You’re so problematic when you come home.” After untying her apron, she flings it on the couch and scoffs.
The sound cuts me deeper. I flinch while scratching at my arm and looking away from her.
My line of sight falls to the white and red polka-dotted apron. Why does she use those? She doesn’t need to wear them. None of my friends’ moms have those. They look too old fashioned. You’d think she’s obsessed with exuding the façade of a perfect white picket fence kind of life.
To me, though, our life is bleak—matching my new last name. Grey. Color doesn’t exist in my world anymore.
Mom, throwing herself down on the couch, scatters my thoughts. “Pat is going to be furious if he comes home from work and knows you two fought again.” She rubs her fingers across her forehead.
Pat isn’t my dad, and I don’t care if he’s mad. I bite the words back. Saying that probably won’t help. Instead, I scuff the ball of my foot on the floor, keeping my head down.
“Seriously, Vivian, you have one duty. Get along with your family.” She spanks the leather of the couch with her palm. “Keep this up and Pat won’t stay married to me. Then what will people think of me? Women talk, Vivie. Being a single mom is hard, and Pat leaving me would look horrendous. He’s the police chief and his brother is the district attorney. Do you know how much opportunity we have with connections like that?”
I shake my head, confused at what a district attorney is or they do.
“Of course, you don’t understand.” She frowns. “You’re a child, but child or not, I won’t lose my respect in this town because you couldn’t get along with your brother.”
“I—” My throat tightens, and I stammer. But what about me? What about what I’m going through now? Timidly, I glance over at her. Hurt buries in my chest as I feel blood trickle down to my shoe, soaking into my white-laced sock. She has to care about me getting injured.
She must.
Her brows furrow the longer I stare at her. It’s as if she knows I want to say something. Finally, she stands, rolling her eyes. “Out with it. Stop looking at me like a wounded puppy and speak up.”
“But—” I nod at my injured leg. “I’m bleeding.”
There’s no sympathy. Only hatred. It seeps from her, erasing the caring mom that used to be mine. She storms over to me, glowers, and points upstairs. “To your room!” The mom I used to love isn’t alive anymore. I see that now. “Stay up there until you can learn how to get along with people who are different from you.”
I hang my head and slowly make my way to the staircase, more tears escaping my eyes as agony slices open my insides.
But I don’t make it to my room in time.
I hear mom open the patio door and address Lonnie with the sympathy I should have received.
“You poor dear. She didn’t upset you, did she?”
The words burn like salt in an open cut, and all I can do is ask myself the same question I ask every day.
Why did Daddy have to die?