Chapter 1 - ASK YOUR MOTHER
Christopher Miller was already standing over Abigail when Claire ran into the living room.
The short wooden stick came down across Abigail’s guarded upper arm.
Once.
Then again across her shoulder.
Abigail crouched beside the wall, one arm raised over her head, the other wrapped protectively around her visibly pregnant belly.
“WHY DID YOU DO IT?!”
Christopher threw the stick aside.
Then grabbed a fistful of Abigail’s hair and jerked her face upward.
“TELL ME THE TRUTH!”
Abigail cried but said nothing.
Claire crossed the hallway at a run.
“CHRISTOPHER!”
She ripped his hand away from her mother’s hair.
Then slapped him across the face.
His head snapped sideways.
“ARE YOU INSANE?!”
Claire stepped between them.
Abigail clutched the back of her cream blouse.
“That’s my mother!”
Christopher slowly turned back.
His cheek was red.
His eyes were worse.
“Then ask her.”
Claire froze.
“Ask her what?”
Christopher pointed past Claire.
At Abigail’s belly.
“Ask your mother why that baby—”
Claire’s face went pale.
“—is my father’s child!”
The room stopped.
Claire turned.
“Mom…?”
Abigail covered her belly with both hands.
She could not meet her daughter’s eyes.
Claire looked back at Christopher.
“What are you talking about?”
“I found the clinic file.”
“What clinic?”
He laughed bitterly.
“Ask her.”
Abigail whispered:
“Claire…”
Claire stepped closer.
“Is he lying?”
“No.”
Claire stopped breathing.
“My baby’s father is Richard.”
Christopher’s father.
Claire’s father-in-law.
Claire looked at her husband.
Then back at her mother.
“How?”
Abigail started crying harder.
“It isn’t what he thinks.”
Christopher shouted:
“His name is on the fertility records!”
Claire flinched.
Then she saw the wooden stick on the floor.
The marks on Abigail’s arms.
Christopher’s rage.
Whatever the secret was, that fact came first.
Claire pointed toward the front door.
“Get out.”
He stared.
“Claire—”
“You hit my pregnant mother.”
“She slept with my father!”
“You hit her.”
“She lied to us!”
“You. Hit. Her.”
Christopher’s mouth opened.
Nothing came.
Claire took out her phone.
“I’m calling an ambulance for Mom.”
Then:
“And if you don’t leave, I’m calling the police while you’re still standing here.”
Christopher looked at Abigail.
Then at Claire.
For the first time, anger gave way to fear.
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Because Claire was not asking whether the secret justified the violence.
She had already decided it did not.
