“Your mother has been difficult lately. She’s been struggling with accepting that you’re building your own family.”
She turned toward me.
“She’s been obsessed with controlling every decision we make.”
I almost admired the speed of her performance.
Almost.
She had practiced this story.
She had probably told it to Daniel dozens of times.
But she had never expected him to hear the version without her editing.
Daniel looked at Chloe.
“Is that what happened?”
Chloe opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
For the first time, she looked uncomfortable.
Because she knew.
She knew there was a camera above the kitchen window.
She knew everything had been recorded.
And she knew Vanessa had gone too far.
“Chloe?” Daniel repeated.
His voice was colder.
“She just wanted to help,” Chloe whispered.
Daniel looked at the scissors.
“Help?”
Nobody answered.
The wind moved through the garden.
The roses shook gently.
The same roses where my husband had planted the first bushes twenty years earlier.
The same roses Vanessa had chosen as the place to humiliate me.
Daniel walked slowly toward the table.
He picked up my fallen hair.
