Chapter 1 - THE FLOOR
The first thing I saw was my mother’s silver hair in Margaret Mercer’s fist.
The second was my husband standing three feet away, doing nothing.
“Get your hands off her!”
My voice cracked across the living room before I even understood what I was seeing.
Mom was on one knee beside the coffee table, seventy years old, one hand braced on the rug while Margaret dragged her backward by the hair. An envelope had split open near the couch. Papers were scattered across the floor.
Ryan looked at me like I was the problem.
“Lauren, stop. Your mom started it.”
I stared at him. “She’s seventy.”
Margaret yanked Mom again.
Mom cried out.
That was it.
I crossed the room, grabbed Margaret by the hair at the back of her head, and pulled her away from my mother.
Margaret spun around, furious. “You little—”
I slapped her.
Hard.
Ryan caught my arm. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I drove my knee into his stomach.
He folded with a grunt, and I shoved him onto the couch.
“You watched her attack my mother.”
Mom was breathing fast. A thin line of blood ran from a scrape near her temple.
Margaret scrambled for the envelope.
Mom got there first.
“No,” she said, clutching it to her chest. “Not this time.”
Ryan’s face changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
I snatched one of the pages from the carpet.
At the top were the words EMERGENCY TEMPORARY CUSTODY.
My daughter Emma’s name was underneath.
So was mine.
And beside my name was a signature I had never written.
My stomach dropped.
“What is this?”
Ryan stood slowly, still holding his stomach.
“Lauren, give me the papers.”
“No.”
Sirens sounded outside.
Margaret looked toward the window.
Ryan whispered, “Mom, what did you do?”
My mother grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t let them take Emma.”
I turned to her.
“Who?”
She looked at Ryan.
Then Margaret.
May you like
“Both of them.”
And someone pounded on the front door.
