Chapter 4

The blood rushed to my head.

"Auntie Viv said so — she said that old woman has such a nice room, and she costs Daddy so much money, and she never gets better, so she's just burning through it—"

"Say that again."

My voice had changed.

Even I couldn't recognize it as my own.

Oliver was startled by the look on my face. He bit his lip, then summoned his nerve and repeated himself: "She's just a money-burning old woman, so what — ah!"

I shoved him.

He tripped over his own feet and landed hard on the floor.

He blinked once, then burst into wailing sobs.

"Daddy! Daddy!"

I stood where I was, my palms numb.

Watching my son kick and flail on the floor, that phrase "money-burning old woman" echoed and echoed in my ears.

That "money-burning old woman" was my mother. His grandmother.

The woman who had dragged herself out of a hospital bed, still healing from surgery, to hand-stitch him a little cotton jacket the month he was born.

The woman who called from the care home every year on his birthday, asking the nurses to help her say "Happy Birthday, Oliver, darling."

And he called her a "money-burning old woman."

The sharp edges of the broken brooch cut into my palm.

The pain cleared my head a little.

Ethan burst through the door, took one look at his son sobbing on the floor, and scooped him up.

"Oliver, what happened?"

Oliver threw himself into his father's arms, crying so hard he could barely breathe. "Daddy, she pushed me — make her leave, I want Auntie Viv..."

Ethan held him and looked up at me.

His eyes held nothing but icy displeasure. "Hannah, are you out of your mind? You hit the child!"

"I didn't hit him." My voice was very quiet. "I pushed him."

"Is there a difference?"

I looked down at the shattered brooch in my hand.

"Yes," I said. "Hitting him would have been a mother disciplining her child. Pushing him — he had it coming."