They Gave My Place to Her, So I Vanished With His Child novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Portrait

Ivy's POV

Philip called at eight the next morning.

"Douglas told you what I said last night," he said. "That I never saw you touch her."

He had not told me.

Douglas had left my apartment at midnight and sent one text that said only, "Sleep."

"No," I said. "He didn't."

Philip breathed out.

"Then hear it from me. I saw Felicity fall. I never saw you push her. I let four years stand on that."

I gripped the edge of the sink.

"You don't get to say that on a phone call before breakfast."

"I know. I'll say it again to your face, as often as you want." He paused. "Mother flew in last night. She knows you're alive. She wants to see Polly."

"No."

"One hour. Only dinner."

"I told you. Nobody takes her to the Kingsbury house."

"She's seventy-one, Ivy. She's been in a hotel in Lisbon for four years because she couldn't stand to look at your bedroom."

I stood at the sink with the phone against my ear.

My mother had missed every birthday I'd ever had, except the ones she sent a card for.

But I had also seen her cry once, at the stone beside my grandmother's grave, when I was eleven.

I had never forgotten it.

"One hour," I said. "I decide when we leave. And Douglas comes."

Philip did not ask why.

"He's already on his way to your building," he said. "He told me an hour ago."

Douglas drove us.

Polly sat in the back seat holding Stripes by his tail and telling Douglas that houses with gates were silly.

He agreed with her about every one.

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