Chapter 15 - The Worst Thing I Could Hear
By Wednesday, the catering award remained on hold, but that was our only good news.
The lender hadn't completed its fraud review.
Dahlia had lost the Richmond apartment.
Nina was frightened into silence.
Severin was staying somewhere he wouldn't tell us.
And I received a formal summons relating to Tatum's assault complaint.
I read it twice at the kitchen counter.
The photograph attached to Tatum's filing showed the bruise on her cheek.
I had put it there.
No photograph of the broken fountain could change that.
Melanie explained that the criminal process might take months.
I would have the chance to discuss diversion or a negotiated outcome, depending on the prosecutor's review.
She wouldn't promise there'd be no conviction.
I said I understood.
I didn't feel as if I did.
Dahlia came home from a meeting about temporary housing and found me staring at the summons.
“Are you going to fight this too?” she asked.
“I'll tell the truth.”
“Which truth, Mom? That Tatum shoved the fountain, or that you punched her?”
“Both.”
Dahlia sat across from me.
“I spent years trying to prove I was more than the little sister everyone talked over,” she said.
“At my own graduation, both of you acted like my feelings belonged to you.”
I began to apologize.
She shook her head.
“I can't hear it again right now.”
She packed an overnight bag and went to Harper's house.
At the door she looked back.
“Dad would have been proud of my degree,” she said.
“He wouldn't have needed to hurt anybody to show it.”
After she left, I stood alone in the kitchen where her father used to slice strawberries with a small, blunt knife.
Then the phone rang.
May you like
It was Severin.
“Mom,” he whispered, “Tatum knows I kept the messages.”
