Chapter 1 - The Water Hit Before the Words Did
The black water hit Kendra before she had time to understand why Loretta was carrying the basin.
One second, Kendra was crossing the hallway between the laundry room and kitchen with eight-month-old Maisie pressed against her chest. The next, Loretta stepped out from the laundry-room doorway, lifted the plastic basin with both hands, and threw its contents straight at them.
Kendra turned on instinct.
The water slapped across her shoulder blades and the back of her head. It soaked through her faded blue blouse and ran cold inside the waistband of her jeans. Dark streaks spread across Maisie's yellow blanket where Kendra's body hadn't completely blocked the splash.
Maisie screamed.
Kendra bent over her daughter, covering the baby's head with one hand while holding her securely with the other arm.
For several seconds, the only sounds were Maisie's crying and dirty water dripping onto the pale limestone floor.
Loretta stood three feet away holding the empty basin.
There was no surprise on her face.
No regret.
"Get out, you filthy country trash," she said. "My son must've been blind to marry you."
Kendra stared at her.
She had lived with Loretta's contempt for three years. She had endured corrections about table settings, comments about her thrift-store college furniture, jokes about her hometown in the Blue Ridge foothills.
She had even tolerated Loretta telling people at Christmas dinner that Kendra's family had been "comfortable enough, considering where they came from."
But this was different.
Maisie was crying against her chest.
"She's your granddaughter," Kendra said.
Loretta looked directly at the baby.
"You're dirty and backward. What did you think you'd raise?"
Something inside Kendra stopped trying to understand.
She turned Maisie away.
Loretta moved closer.
The first slap caught Kendra across the cheek.
The second landed before she could step back.
By the third, Kendra's shoulder struck the wall.
Her arms never opened.
Maisie remained locked safely against her chest, sheltered between Kendra's body and the blanket.
Loretta pointed toward the foyer.
"Get out before Blake gets home."
Kendra tasted blood where she'd bitten the inside of her cheek.
She looked at the woman she had spent years trying to impress and realized, with a clarity more painful than the slaps, that there was nothing left to win.
Then the front door opened.
"Who exactly is throwing my daughter and granddaughter out of this house?"
Loretta's hand fell.
Kendra closed her eyes for half a second.
"Dad."
Warren Mercer stood inside the foyer in a charcoal overcoat, one hand still on the door.
He was supposed to arrive at five-thirty.
Kendra had invited him for dinner because he and Blake had been making a strained attempt at repairing their relationship. She had nearly canceled that morning after Blake warned her that his mother was already "in one of her moods."
Traffic from Statesville had apparently been lighter than expected.
Warren took in the hallway.
The water.
The basin.
Kendra's wet hair.
The red marks appearing across her cheek.
His granddaughter crying into a dirty blanket.
Loretta recovered first.
"This is a family matter."
Warren removed his overcoat.
"No," he said quietly. "It stopped being private when you put your hands on my daughter."
Kendra had seen her father angry before. Warren had built a regional logistics company from two trucks and a rented warehouse, and his anger usually arrived as silence rather than shouting.
This silence frightened Loretta more than shouting would have.
Warren walked to Kendra.
He didn't touch Loretta.
He didn't threaten her.
He took off his suit jacket, wrapped it around Kendra's wet shoulders, and looked at Maisie.
"Did anything get in her eyes?"
"I don't think so."
"We're getting her checked."
Loretta scoffed. "You're being ridiculous."
Warren looked at her for the first time.
"Don't speak to them."
The authority in his voice made Loretta step backward.
Kendra expected relief.
Instead, shame rose through her so quickly she almost couldn't breathe.
Her father had warned her about Loretta before the wedding.
Not with cruelty. Not with an ultimatum.
He had simply said, "People who make you audition for respect rarely stop holding auditions."
Kendra had accused him of judging Blake's family because they were rich in a way different from him.
Now she stood soaked in laundry water with her daughter crying against her chest.
Warren picked up Kendra's purse from the console table.
As he did, a white envelope slipped from beneath it and landed on the floor.
Kendra recognized Blake's family business logo.
HOLLIS CUSTOM MILLWORK.
Loretta moved toward it too quickly.
Warren noticed.
So did Kendra.
Loretta stopped.
"That's nothing."
Kendra bent down carefully, keeping Maisie against her.
The envelope was already open.
Her name appeared in the little plastic window.
Kendra Mercer Hollis.
Underneath it were four words she had never seen together before.
NOTICE TO PERSONAL GUARANTOR.
Kendra looked at Loretta.
For the first time since the basin had been lifted, Loretta did not look disgusted.
May you like
She looked afraid.
And Kendra suddenly knew the attack in the hallway had not started in the laundry room.
