Chapter 19: Born Healthy

Nobody spoke after I said it.

Willa stood with her mouth open and the cameras on her.

I watched her search the room for one friendly face.

She found Miriam.

Miriam looked at the floor.

"Simon," Willa said. "Darling. Please. We can talk about this at home."

"I am filing on Monday," said Simon.

He said it evenly, as he said everything.

"You may keep the house until the baby is born.

"You will not touch the foundation's accounts again. The lawyers will have the ledger by morning."

"You can't do this to me. I'm having your child."

"I know," Simon said. "That is why I will be there for it."

Willa turned to my mother.

"Mom, tell him."

Helen walked across the floor.

She stopped in front of her other daughter.

She was small and gray and shaking, and she did not look at the cameras.

"No," she said. "I'm done, Willa. I told Cassandra to be quiet for you for twenty-nine years.

"I'm sorry I did. I won't tell her again."

"Mom, please..."

"I heard what you called your own sister tonight. A dying woman."

My mother's voice broke.

"I will love you until I die. But I won't lie for you anymore."

Willa made a small, shocked sound.

Behind her, Miriam had sat down on the bench with her pearls in her fist.

I looked at her.

She was looking at the kitchen window on the wall, at the green light I had painted.

She did not look away from it.

I had waited three years to see my mother-in-law's face with nothing on it.

I found I did not enjoy it as much as I had expected.

Then Willa's hand flew to her belly.

"Oh," she said, in a voice I had never heard from her, small and blunt. "Oh. Simon."

There was a dark stain spreading across the white dress and down to her shoes.

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