The Daughter They Sacrificed Chose a New Life novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Her Version

I took my mother to the professor's kitchen, because I wasn't going to let her say any of it in front of the studio.

Dad stayed in the car at the curb.

I could see the back of his head through the front window.

Mom sat at the table without being asked and laid a cream envelope in front of me.

"I'll make this simple," she said. "Your card is unfrozen as of this morning. The money in your grandmother's account is replaced, with interest. You may keep your little school."

"And?"

"And you sign this."

She slid a typed page across the table.

It said that I, Saskia Hartwell, had been suffering from grief and exhaustion, and that my recent statements about my ninth birthday were mistaken.

I read the page twice.

"You typed this on the plane."

"I had a long flight."

"You made me say the balloon in the hospital," I said. "I was nine, and you held my face."

Mom did not blink.

"Yes," she said. "And you said it beautifully."

I had expected her to deny it.

I had even expected her to cry.

"I thought about it," Mom said, "for about as long as it takes to cross a waiting room. Clayton was thirteen and shaking. Chloe was screaming for her father. You sat in a plastic chair with a plate of cake in your lap, and you nodded when I spoke to you."

"I was in shock."

"You were obedient. I looked at three children and I knew which one could carry it." She folded her gloves. "It would have to be Saskia."

It was exactly what she had said at the party, in the same voice.

She hadn't been playing a game.

"Mr. Daley died," I said. "Dad killed him."

"Your father made one mistake in his whole life."

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