Chapter 2 - The Truth in the Shadows
Brynn eventually stopped crying,
but she wouldn't let go of my hand.
She sat in the back seat,
staring out the window as we drove away from the mall.
"Mommy?"
she asked quietly,
her voice small and fragile.
"Yes,
baby?"
"Auntie Tabitha told me to play a game,"
she whispered.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened.
"What kind of game,
Brynn?"
"She told me to hide,"
Brynn said,
a fresh tear rolling down her cheek.
"She said if I stayed very still behind the big coats,"
"I would get a special surprise for Peyton’s birthday."
I felt a surge of cold fury so intense I thought I might black out.
This wasn't an accident.
Tabitha had instructed my daughter to hide so she could "forget" her.
"I stayed there for a long time,"
Brynn continued,
her voice trembling.
"I saw them walk away,
Mommy."
"I saw Auntie Tabitha holding Peyton’s hand."
"I tried to run to them,"
"but Auntie Tabitha looked at me and shook her head."
"She whispered something to Peyton,"
"and then they just walked out the big doors."
I pulled the car over to the side of the road,
unable to drive any further.
I needed to breathe,
but the air felt like poison.
They had looked at her.
They had seen her trying to follow,
and they had intentionally left her behind.
They wanted her to be scared.
They wanted her to feel abandoned.
All because she was "stealing attention" from Tabitha’s daughter.
"I’m so sorry,
Brynn,"
I said,
climbing into the back seat to hold her.
"I am so,
so sorry."
"Am I a bad girl?"
she asked,
looking at me with heartbreaking sincerity.
"No,"
I said,
my voice firm.
"You are the best girl in the world."
"The people who left you are the bad ones."
"And they are never going to hurt you again."
I realized then that my mother must have been in on it.
The way she told me not to overreact,
the way she didn't even look up from her dish towel.
She knew.
She had probably helped plan it.
They thought I was weak.
They thought I was the "insurance girl" who would always take their abuse.
They thought they could use my daughter as a pawn in their sick family games.
But they had forgotten one thing.
I was the one who handled the books.
I was the one who knew where every cent of my mother's "inheritance" went.
I was the one who had spent the last five years quietly fixing their messes.
I sat back in the driver's seat and looked at my phone.
I had one message from Tabitha.
"Did you find the brat yet?
Dinner is getting cold."
I didn't reply.
Instead,
I looked at the contact I had dialed earlier.
It was a man named Julian.
He was Tabitha’s husband’s boss,
and a close family friend of theirs.
He was also the man who held the mortgage on Tabitha’s "upscale" house.
And he owed me a very large favor.
Two years ago,
I had discovered a massive accounting error in his firm,
one that would have cost him millions.
I fixed it quietly,
never asking for a dime.
I told him I might need a favor one day.
That day had arrived.
I started the car and drove back toward my mother’s house.
May you like
I wasn't going there to argue.
I was going there to deliver an eviction notice to my own life.
