My Family Sold Me for Their Favourite Daughter novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Room

In the Shaker Heights house her bedroom is a gym, her ring is on Callie's hand, and her mother calls the obituary a cruel lie. Benton pockets the agent's card and a lock turns behind her.

The house in Shaker Heights still had the green door.

Someone had planted white mums along the walk, forty of them, in a straight line.

Inside, the hall smelled of lemon polish and lilies.

On the wall by the stairs hung a framed poster with my face on it from seven years ago.

FIND WILLA, it said, and under that, in smaller letters, The Lowry Hope Fund.

"Three million dollars," my mother said, following my eyes. "People love you, Willa. They never stopped giving."

"Where is it?" I asked. "The money."

"Invested, darling. For the search."

"The search that ended this morning."

"Mom means it's been a long road," Callie said quickly, and took my elbow. "Come see your room."

My room had been at the top of the stairs, with a window onto the maple.

The window was still there.

The bed was gone.

A treadmill faced the glass, and a rack of pink dumbbells stood against the wall where my bookshelf used to be.

"We turned it into a gym," Callie said. "After the second year, Mom thought it would be healthier than keeping it like a shrine."

"Where are my things?"

"In storage," Benton said from the doorway. "Safe."

He had taken off his jacket and his watch glinted under the light.

"You'll sleep in our room," he said. "Where you belong."

I looked at Callie's hand on my arm.

On her right hand, next to the gold bracelet, was a thin band with a small square diamond.

I had picked it out myself, at a jeweller's on Chagrin Boulevard, when I was twenty-two.

"That's my wedding ring," I said.

Callie looked down and went pink.

"Oh. Oh, Willa, I'm so sorry. Benton gave it to me the first anniversary after you were gone. I wanted something of yours near me."

"I wanted her to have it," Benton said. "It was easier than watching it sit in a drawer."

"Give it back," I said.

Callie twisted it off with both hands and set it in my palm, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Of course. Of course, I'm so sorry."

My mother put an arm around Callie and glared at me over her head.

"She's been grieving for seven years, Willa. Could you not?"

I closed my fingers over the ring.

It was still warm from her skin.

I waited until my mother had steered Callie toward the stairs, and then I spoke to the empty hall.

"I read your obituary."

My mother stopped on the third step.

"I'm sorry?"

"A house fire," I said. "All three of you. There were photographs."

Benton did not move.

My mother came down the three steps slowly and took my face in both her hands.

"Oh, my darling. That man said the cruelest things to frighten you. There was never a fire. We were right here, praying for you."

"It was a newspaper clipping."

"He made it up, Willa. He made up everything."

It was a reasonable answer, and she gave it without a pause.

I had seen a hundred men tell a lie that way in Dray's office.

The smooth ones never stopped to think.

"Of course," I said, and let her hold my face.

The bathroom upstairs had a heated floor and a shower with three heads.

My mother ran the bath herself and set out a robe, and when I took off the foil blanket, she turned toward the window.

I let her look away.

My ribs showed under my skin, and the burn across my forearm shone pink where the cigarette had been.

"You're just thin," she said to the glass. "You'll fill out. Callie will make you a tray."

"Mom, my left wrist is broken."

"It's healed."

"It healed crooked."

"Then we'll find someone who can fix it," she said. "After you've rested."

She left without looking at the arm.

Benton was waiting in the bedroom when I came out in the robe.

He had laid the new phone on the pillow, still in its box.

"Your number's already programmed in," he said. "Mine, your mother's, Callie's. Nobody else. We'll add people once you're ready."

"I want to call the agent."

"You will. With me beside you." He lifted the foil blanket from the chair, shook it out and folded it, and a white card slid onto the carpet.

He picked it up and read it.

"Special Agent Fiske," he said. "He was kind."

He slid it into his breast pocket and patted it flat.

"He's not a lawyer, Willa. People like him build a case and then they forget you. I've spent seven years learning what the system does to women like you."

"What did it do?"

"Nothing," Benton said. "That's the point. Nobody did anything." He kissed my forehead, and his mouth was cool and dry. "Get some sleep. The doctor's coming at nine."

"What doctor?"

"A friend of your mother's," he said. "He's very discreet."

He shut the door behind him.

I heard the lock turn.

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