Chapter 3 - Blue Ribbons
The restaurant manager guided us to a private dining room while Rosa asked guests to put their phones away. My hair lay uneven against my neck. Every time I moved, a short piece scratched my collar. I wanted to cry and throw up and find somewhere no one knew my name.
Rosa knelt beside me. “I saved the flowers,” she said, opening her palm. “They fell when she pulled.”
Three white roses rested there, their tiny blue ribbons still tied. I took them before I could lose anything else.
Elliot placed the sale notice on the table. Riverbend House, 41 Willow Street. The address caught in my throat. My mother, June Reed, had organized food drives there. When our apartment flooded, she'd spent two weeks finding groceries and blankets for families we didn't know.
“Riverbend isn't owned by the Hales,” I said. “It's a nonprofit housing program.”
“That's what it should be,” Elliot answered. “My father put the property in a charitable trust. Martha managed the bookkeeping. Last year, a deed appeared transferring the building to a company called MHC Holdings.”
“Her initials,” Nick said.
“That's the problem. The deed carries my signature. I never signed it.”
Nick rubbed both hands down his face. “Why didn't you tell me before?”
“Because until yesterday I didn't have the record. Your mother has blocked me from company papers for nineteen years.”
I thought of Martha calling my mother a charity case, of the way she'd offered to pay for our wedding if I agreed not to invite half my family.
A soft knock came. Our photographer, Tessa, entered. “You need to see something.”
She turned her camera around. In the last photograph before the cut, Martha stood behind me with the scissors open. Behind her, a woman in a silver dress appeared to be giving a small nod.
May you like
I recognized the woman immediately: Vivian Whitcomb, Martha's wealthy best friend, whose daughter she'd wanted Nick to marry.
Tessa tapped the next image. Vivian was holding a phone. Its screen showed a message already typed: DO IT NOW.
