Chapter 6 - Poison in the Well
By Monday morning, my life had become a living nightmare.
When I took Lily home from the hospital, two local reporters were parked outside our suburban townhouse. Arthur had already leaked a story to the county gazette, framing the incident as “a tragic family dispute involving an unstable daughter attempting to extort her philanthropic father.”
My phone rang off the hook. Aunts who had hugged me at Thanksgiving called to leave venomous voicemails, accusing me of being an ungrateful monster who was trying to ruin an old man’s legacy. Friends of the family crossed the street when they saw David walking our dog.
At 10:00 AM, my mother showed up at our front door.
Evelyn looked haggard. Her designer blouse was rumpled, and she wore dark sunglasses indoors to hide the dark circles under her eyes. She pushed past me into the foyer, looking around nervously.
“Where is she? Where is my granddaughter?” Evelyn demanded.
“Lily is sleeping in her room, Mom,” I said, crossing my arms, keeping myself firmly between her and the hallway. “What do you want?”
Evelyn reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a manila envelope. She shoved it into my hands.
“Arthur authorized this,” she whispered, her hands shaking. “It’s a check for fifty thousand dollars. And the deed to the vacation cabin in the mountains. All you have to do is sign the affidavit Julian’s lawyer prepared. You say Lily bumped her head on the counter, that you were hysterical, and that the report was a misunderstanding.”
I stared down at the check. Fifty thousand dollars. The price Arthur put on his granddaughter’s skull.
“Did you watch him do it, Mom?” I asked, my voice cracking with grief. “You were right behind him. Did you see the belt strike her head?”
Evelyn flinched. She looked away, tears pooling behind her sunglasses. “Arthur is a traditional man, Maya! He was raised strictly! You know how he gets when he feels disrespected! If you don't drop these charges, the sheriff will arrest him. It will destroy us! His reputation, his club membership, his legacy—everything we built will be gone!”
“What about *my* daughter, Mom?” I screamed. “What about the four stitches in her head? What about the fact that she flinches every time David adjusts his pants? You let him hit me when I was a kid, and you let him hit Julian, and now you’re asking me to sell my daughter’s safety so Dad can keep going to his country club?!”
“Maya, please!” Evelyn sobbed, dropping to her knees on my entryway floor. “If he goes down, he takes all of us with him! He’ll cut me off! I have nowhere else to go!”
I opened the front door wide.
May you like
“Take your money and get out of my house,” I said coldly. “And tell Arthur I’ll see him in court.”
***
