She Steps Out Of Betrayal's Shadow To Rebuild Her Broken Home novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Mommy's Drawing

Melinda meets her daughter alone, hears her mother hang up on her, and learns she will be moved at midnight to a retreat.

Melinda held the phone for a long time without pressing anything.

Zachary Maddox had called her forty-one times, and her husband had had him thrown out of the building.

She wasn't ready to ask why.

At five o'clock Bianca came back with Posy and a lemon cake in a white box.

"Your favorite," Bianca said. "You told me that once at a sleepover and I never forgot it."

It was Melinda's favorite. She was nineteen again for a second, and warm.

"Bianca, could I have a few minutes with her? Just us?"

"Of course." Bianca squeezed Posy's shoulder. "I'll be right outside the door."

She left without a flicker of hurt, and the door closed softly behind her.

Posy stood in the middle of the room with her hands behind her back.

She looked at the bed the way a person looks at a dog she has been told is friendly.

"You don't have to come close," Melinda said. "You can sit in the chair."

Posy climbed into it. Her sneakers didn't reach the floor.

"I made you something," she said.

She took a folded paper from her back pocket and held it out.

It was a crayon drawing of a huge tree with drooping branches that nearly touched the grass. A woman with yellow hair stood under it.

"That's the maple," Posy said. "It's gone now. Daddy said they had to take it out."

Melinda's throat tightened.

"Who's the lady?"

"You. You always stand there. You stood there every day, until you stopped."

"When did I stop?"

Posy shrugged with her whole body.

"When the men came with the saws."

Melinda smoothed the paper against the blanket.

"Posy, what do I call you? Do I have a name for you?"

The girl thought about it.

"Bug," she said. "You say it when you tuck me in. Nobody else is allowed."

Melinda stopped breathing.

Bug was what her father had called her. Nobody else had been allowed to say it, either.

"That's what my dad called me," she said.

"Grandpa? I know." Posy's feet swung. "Aunt Bianca does the tucking now. Daddy says you're too tired."

"Do I read to you?"

"You used to. You stopped when it got loud at night."

"Loud how?"

Posy's face closed up.

"I'm not supposed to say stuff," she said. "Daddy says it makes you sad and then you get sick."

Melinda held very still.

"Okay," she said. "You don't have to."

Posy looked at her for a while.

Then she slid off the chair, walked to the bed and put her cheek against Melinda's arm, very briefly.

Melinda didn't move. She let it happen.

When Bianca knocked and took Posy home, Melinda sat with the drawing in her hands and her heart going hard.

The phone buzzed in her lap at six-thirty. It was a reminder she had set herself, long ago, and it said only: Call Mom.

She pressed it.

It rang four times.

"Hello." The voice was older than she remembered, and flat.

"Mom. It's me. I woke up."

There was no sound at all.

"Mom?"

"I know who it is." Dorothy Harlow's breath came out thin. "Your husband's secretary called me eleven weeks ago. She said you wouldn't want visitors."

"I never said that."

"Three years, Melinda. Three years you couldn't pick up a phone, and now you call me from a hospital bed."

"I don't remember three years. I don't remember ten." Melinda's voice cracked. "Mom, please. I'm nineteen in my head."

Her mother was quiet.

"You sold your father's house," Dorothy said at last. "You stood in my kitchen and told me it was for the best."

"I didn't."

"Ask your husband what you signed."

The line went dead.

Melinda sat holding the phone against her chest.

At eleven o'clock the hallway outside her door grew busy with quiet people.

She slipped out of bed and stood with her ear against the wood. Her legs shook, but they held.

Leland's voice came first, low and calm. "Transport is at midnight. The car is already downstairs."

"She's only been awake a day," Bianca said. "Lee, can't it wait a week?"

"She won't sign, Bee. Not here, with her mother's voice in her ear. At the retreat there's no phone and no one else."

"What if she fights?"

"Then the nurse gives her something and she sleeps through the drive."

Melinda's hand went flat against the door.

"You're sure it's what's best for her?" Bianca asked, and she sounded unhappy.

"I'm sure it's what's best for the house," Leland said.

Footsteps moved away down the hall.

Melinda went back to the bed in the dark and sat very straight.

It was 11:40. She had twenty minutes, a gown, no shoes and a phone with one name on it.

She found Zach in her contacts and pressed call.

It didn't ring.

"Del."

His voice was rough, low, and exactly the way she remembered it.

"Zach," she said. "I think they're going to take me somewhere."

"I know. I've been watching the garage." There was a sound of a truck door opening. "Which floor are you on?"

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