Margaret took them with trembling hands.
On top was a photograph.
Four newborns in hospital incubators.
Noah, Ethan, Sophia, and Olivia.
Each smaller than my forearm.
Each fighting for every breath.
Margaret made a broken sound.
“I never saw this,” she whispered. “Kesha, I swear to you, I never saw this.”
I believed her.
That surprised me.
For years I had imagined this woman sitting in her beautiful home, reading my letters and tossing them aside because I was no longer useful to the Reynolds name. But the grief in her face was too raw to be performed.
Daniel saw my expression soften toward his mother, and panic sharpened his tone.
“Mother, don’t let her manipulate you.”
Margaret looked at him slowly.
There was a kind of death in her eyes.
Not of love.
Of illusion.
“Do not call me Mother while lying to my face.”
The room inhaled as one.
