Chapter 2

My mother pushed through the crowd.

When she saw the scar on my stomach, her face turned livid. “Nora Bennett! So that’s why you stayed away for years! You were out being a whore and having some bastard’s baby!”

She didn’t ask how I’d gotten hurt or whether it had been painful. All she cared about was being embarrassed.

She pointed a trembling finger in my face.

“You’ve disgraced this entire family!”

I took a deep breath and looked at the woman who had given birth to me.

Because of the nature of my work, I rarely came home.

“Mom, I was injured on duty. Three years ago—”

“Shut up!”

Her scream cut me off. “What kind of work injury leaves a scar on your stomach? Right where a C-section would be?”

Ethan jumped in, backing away from me in disgust.

“So that year you disappeared, you were off having some bastard’s kid? That’s sick!”

“I even bragged to Lily that you worked for the government. Turns out you’re just a slut!”

As I stared at his twisted face, the last bit of warmth inside me disappeared.

I’d spent years working myself to the bone to put him through college. And this was what I got.

Seeing that things had gone far enough, Lily started playing the peacemaker.

“Please don’t be angry, Mrs. Bennett. Maybe Nora had her reasons. Maybe she was some powerful man’s mistress…”

“With a job like hers, she’s never home. Who knows what she really does out there?”

That only made my mother angrier.

“You shameless little tramp! No wonder you keep refusing to let me set you up with someone. You’ve been sleeping around!”

I gave Lily an icy look. “Say one more word. Go ahead.”

She shrank into Ethan’s arms. “Ethan, she’s scaring me. Did I say something wrong?”

“It’s okay. I’m here.”

He put his arms around her and shouted at me. “You did it, but nobody’s allowed to talk about it? Lily trained as a nurse! You think she can’t tell?”

“A nurse?” My mother seized on it. “Lily, are you sure that’s a C-section?”

Lily nodded firmly. “I did a clinical rotation in maternity care. That’s definitely a C-section incision. A vertical one, too. They usually only do those in emergencies.”

My mother exploded again.

“You shameless creature! How did I raise something like you?”

“I should’ve strangled you the day you were born!”

I’d heard those words all my life. But they’d never cut as deeply as they did today.

I looked at her, still hoping, and tried to explain. “Mom, I was injured on duty.”

Lily immediately interrupted. “Nora, Ethan told me you’re some kind of traffic auxiliary officer, right?”

“I know auxiliary officers help the police, but who goes on assignments all the time and stays away for an entire year?”

“And how would a traffic auxiliary officer get a wound like that? Were you directing traffic or getting into knife fights?”

She looked me up and down with open contempt.

“Stop hiding behind your job. We’re not stupid.”

Her words poured gasoline on my mother’s anger.

She’d always thought my auxiliary job was beneath me. The pay was low, and I couldn’t look after the family.

Now she was convinced that my supposed job was nothing but a cover.

“How much longer are you going to lie? A knife wound?”

Her voice rose to a piercing shriek.

“Were you running around with gangs? Killing people? If you’d been hurt that badly, don’t you think your own mother would know?”

For a moment, my thoughts drifted.

Of course you wouldn’t know.

Every time I called home, all you wanted to talk about was Ethan needing money or wanting new shoes.

You never once asked whether I was tired. Whether I was hurting.

Ethan pointed at me in disgust. “Always claiming you’re busy helping the cops? Bet I know exactly how you’re servicing them!”

The sales associate came over, looking repulsed.

“Ma’am, please lower your voice. You’re disturbing our customers.”

“And you’ll need to buy whatever you tried on, or pay to have it dry-cleaned. It’s filthy now.”

She put special emphasis on “filthy.”

She even called mall security to have me removed for damaging the store’s image.