Chapter 2 - The Secret in the Kitchen
The moment stretched only a few seconds.
Then Megan dragged Brianna off me.
I curled onto my side, fighting for breath.
“Don’t move,” Megan said.
Brianna wiped rotten meat from her cheek.
“You shoved me onto her.”
“You were kicking a seventy-year-old woman.”
“She attacked me first.”
Even in pain, I looked at her.
“What?”
Brianna pointed at me.
“She threw the basin.”
Megan gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“I watched you dump it over her head.”
Brianna’s face tightened.
Then her eyes moved toward Megan.
“You say one word about what happened before my wedding and I’ll destroy this family.”
That was not denial.
I noticed.
Megan noticed too.
She called 911.
At Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, imaging showed bruised ribs but no fracture. My right hip was badly bruised. The physician documented everything Megan and I described.
Brian arrived forty minutes later.
My oldest son rushed toward me.
“Mom.”
Then Brianna entered behind him.
Clean clothes.
Washed hair.
Red eyes.
She had gotten to him first.
Brian stopped beside my bed.
“What the hell happened?”
Before I could answer, Brianna said, “Megan attacked me.”
Megan stood near the window.
“I stopped you from abusing Helen.”
Brian looked between us.
Then at his wife.
Then at me.
“What abuse?”
My stomach sank.
Brianna had been cruel to me for months.
But she had always waited until Brian was gone.
Now I finally understood why.
She had been creating two different homes inside the same house.
May you like
The one Brian saw.
And the one I lived in.
