Chapter 2
I did not turn around.
If I had, I might have become someone Rosie should never see.
I walked down the porch steps with glass crunching beneath my shoes.
Rosie’s breath shook against my neck.
“Daddy, was Grandpa mad?”
“Yes.”
“At me?”
I stopped beside my truck.
“No, sweetheart. Never at you.”
I buckled her into her car seat with hands that would not stop trembling.
The bruise on her cheek looked darker under the porch light.
My sister had done that.
My family had watched.
My father had thrown glass at us.
I closed the door gently.
Then my mother ran onto the porch.
“Mark, don’t you dare leave like this!”
I looked at her.
“Who watched Bethany hurt her?”
Mom’s face went pale.
“It got out of hand.”
“That is not an answer.”
“She was teasing her.”
“She bruised her face.”
“Bethany didn’t mean—”
“Stop.”
My voice cut through the cold night.
Mom flinched.
Good.
“She is four,” I said. “Four.”
Dad came to the doorway.
“You hit your sister in my house.”
I laughed once.
“You threw a glass at your granddaughter.”
He pointed at me.
“That child has made you weak.”
Rosie heard him.
I saw her little shoulders curl inward through the window.
I stepped toward him.
“No. That child is the only reason I’m not walking back in there.”
Dad’s jaw clenched.
“You’ll regret this.”
“I already regret coming.”
I got in the truck and drove away.
Rosie stayed quiet for ten minutes.
Then she whispered, “Aunt Beth said Mommy left because I cried too much.”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Her mother, Elena, had died in a car crash two years earlier.
Rosie still slept with her scarf under her pillow.
I pulled into a gas station and parked under the bright lights.
I turned around.
“Rosie, Mommy loved you more than anything in this world.”
Her lip trembled.
“Aunt Beth said I made people leave.”
I unbuckled and climbed into the back seat.
I held her until she sobbed.
And while she cried, my phone buzzed.
May you like
A message from an unknown number.
Check Bethany’s purse before she hides what Elena left behind.
