Chapter 8: The Clip

I did not sit down.

"Say what you want to say, Mom."

She stood with her back to the door, one hand pressed to her bare ear.

For the first time in my life, I watched her look for words.

"I need you to sign a guarantee," she said. "On the Larkspur house. Only on paper. It gives me time."

"Time for what?"

"To pay what I owe."

"To who?"

"People who are not patient."

Her mouth trembled and she pressed it flat.

"You sign, and I withdraw the contest. You keep the baby, and you keep your trust. Nobody has to hear about any of this."

In my last life, she had sat across a glass window from me and said the same thing with the same face.

Sign.

I had not understood then what she was selling.

"No," I said.

"Willa."

"You called child services on me before my sister had finished screaming. You tried to take my son. And now you want me to pay your debts."

"You're my daughter."

"I was your daughter in the hospital lobby, too."

She came at me.

Finbar stepped between us, and she stopped with her hand against his chest.

He removed it gently.

"Mrs. Hungerford," he said. "We're leaving."

He turned the deadbolt and opened the front door.

Light poured in.

My mother stood in the hall with her ear bare and her breath coming fast.

"Kylie will be released tonight," she said, to my back. "You might not want to be home."

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