Chapter 3 - The Drive Back
The snow had slowed to a heavy, sluggish drift by the time I left Riverside General, but the temperature had plummeted. Every puddle on the asphalt was locked under a skin of black ice that crunched menacingly beneath my tires.
I didn't go back to David’s floor. I couldn't. If I looked at him—pale, hooked to monitors, fighting for his spleen and his ribs—knowing that the people who raised me had tried to freeze his children to death to avoid an inconvenience, something inside my head would snap entirely. I had to keep the fracture contained. I had to keep it sharp.
My phone rang twice on the dashboard display. Mother.
I let it ring out. The digital screen flashed her face—a studio portrait from the firm’s website, hair blown out, pearls catching the studio lights, smiling with that careful, calculated upturn of the lips that meant she was being photographed for a society page.
When it stopped, it vibrated again immediately. Then a text message popped up:
Sarah, where are the children? Your father and I have guests arriving for the holiday supper at six. We expected you to drop them off and return to your husband. It is unseemly to leave them here when we have a catered event. Call us immediately.
I stared at the screen until the letters blurred into a grey smear.
Unseemly.
That was the word that had governed my entire childhood. It wasn't about right or wrong. It wasn't about kindness, or safety, or love. It was about optics. If David was dying in an ER, that was a private tragedy we could manage, provided it didn't disrupt the annual Vance Financial Christmas Eve-into-Christmas Day reception for local judges and bank presidents. But two little girls showing up at the front door with wet shoes and frightened eyes, crying for their injured father? That was messy. That was bad for business. That was unseemly.
I pulled my car off the main road and turned onto Oakwood Lane.
The transformation from the working-class streets around Riverside General to this gated enclave was like crossing into another century. Here, the streetlights were old-world iron gas lamps, flickering amber through the falling snow. The lawns were manicured acres, currently buried under pristine, undisturbed blankets of white—except for one driveway.
My parents' circular drive was completely plowed. A sleek black Mercedes SUV sat parked near the heated double garage, its custom wheels gleaming. Through the massive leaded-glass windows of the front foyer, warm yellow light spilled out onto the porch. I could see the edge of an enormous Fraser fir tree, decorated entirely in silver and crystal, spinning slowly on a motorized musical stand.
They were having a party. Or at least, they were pretending very hard that one was about to happen.
I didn't park in the drive. I cut my headlights, left the engine idling, and pulled my car sideways right across the mouth of their entrance, blocking the Mercedes completely.
As I stepped out of the car, the cold hit me like a physical blow, but I didn't feel it. My coat was unzipped. My hands were bare.
May you like
I walked up the stone steps—the exact steps Maisie and Ruby had climbed less than two hours before—and raised my hand. I didn't bother with the brass knocker shaped like a Victorian lion's head.
I hit the solid mahogany wood with the flat of my palm. Once. Twice. Three times. A rhythmic, heavy pounding that echoed through the hollows of the porch roof.
