Chapter 1 - THE SLAP AT THE POOL
The scream that cut through Ariel’s third-birthday party was not mine.
It was my daughter’s.
One second the backyard was full of pink balloons, folding chairs, melting ice cream, and adults pretending to have easy summer lives.
The next, Clara Bennett—my fifty-two-year-old stepmother in an elegant navy one-piece—had my three-year-old daughter’s wrist in one hand and had just slapped her across the cheek with the other.
Ariel recoiled so hard she almost fell beside the pool.
Her little face crumpled instantly.
“Mommy!”
I ran.
I got to her just as Clara released her.
Clara turned on me, chest heaving, blond hair stuck to the side of her neck from the heat.
“Teach your daughter not to point at people’s stomachs!”
I pulled Ariel behind me and crouched low, my hands flying over her shoulders, her face, her arms, making sure she was still okay.
Her cheek was pink, but she was conscious, crying hard, no cut, no swelling that I could see.
“Don’t ever touch my daughter again,” I said.
Clara looked less guilty than furious.
Ariel buried her face in my neck—then suddenly twisted around me and pointed again.
Not at the pool.
Not at the cake.
At Clara.
“Mommy…” she sobbed. “Daddy’s there.”
My husband Glen was five or six feet away near the drink table.
I pointed at him automatically.
“Baby, Daddy’s right there.”
Ariel looked at Glen, then shook her head so hard her wet blond curls slapped her face.
“No!” she cried. “On her stomach!”
Everything stopped.
I felt it.
Not in the backyard.
Inside me.
Clara’s expression changed first.
Her mouth tightened.
Then Glen’s smile disappeared.
Clara crossed both arms over her stomach in a motion so fast it looked instinctive.
“She’s talking nonsense,” she snapped.
Ariel grabbed my hand and pulled with surprising strength.
“Come see!”
She dragged me toward Clara.
Clara took one step back.
Then another.
For the first time since I’d met her, my stepmother looked scared.
That was when I noticed she wasn’t just covering herself.
She was covering one exact spot low on her stomach, just above the line of her swimsuit.
A small waterproof flesh-colored patch peeked beneath her forearm.
Ariel pointed straight at it.
“There! Look!”
I moved right.
Clara turned right.
I stepped left.
So did she.
Then Glen started walking toward us fast.
Too fast.
I finally caught a clear glimpse.
Not enough to understand.
Enough to know it mattered.
A square medical dressing.
And beneath the transparent edge of it, several tiny dark bruises in a neat pattern around her lower abdomen.
I froze.
Then I looked at Glen.
He stopped dead.
Clara’s face drained pale.
“Glen,” I said slowly, hearing my own voice turn unfamiliar. “What is this?”
Ariel hid behind my leg, still crying.
May you like
Glen opened his mouth.
And for the first time in our marriage, I knew before he spoke that whatever came next would be a lie.
