Chapter 19: June Stands

In the silence after the recording, my mother turned around to face Margo.

She stood with both hands on the bars, and her knees shook the whole time she did it.

"Turn that off," she said.

Margo put the phone down.

"I said every word of that," my mother said.

"I meant every word, and I want you to hear me say so."

Margo's face lifted, just slightly.

"I said it to an eleven-year-old girl who slept on my living room floor."

"June."

"That girl ate at my table for years. She learned to drive in my car.

I thought she was learning how to be loved."

My mother's voice did not rise.

"You were learning what we had that you could take."

The nurse had come back with the tea and stopped in the doorway with the cup.

"I'm not angry that you wanted Dawson," my mother said. "People want things.

I'm angry that you stood in a church and watched me turn my chair around."

"I didn't think you'd see."

"You hoped I'd see," my mother said. "You hoped I would see, and cry, and make Kerry stay."

Margo said nothing.

"Keep the recording," my mother said. "It's a message from a woman who didn't know you yet.

I'm leaving a new one right now."

She took a breath that rattled.

"You are not my daughter. You are not my second anything.

You are a stranger who has done my family harm, and you will not come near me again."

Margo's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

The room was so silent I could hear the nurse's tea go cold.

Margo picked up her bag.

She walked past the receptionist, past the bikes and out through the glass door, and she did not look back.

My mother let go of the bars.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Made Her His Bride to Punish Me for Jealousy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.