“Get your hands off her!” I said.
“Stop!” Ellie shouted.
The sound cut through all three of us. Ellie looked at me like I’d broken something precious.
“I didn’t ask because I trusted you to tell me the truth. I didn’t ask because I saw how you always tensed up whenever I even mentioned my dad or Grandma. I didn’t know you were letting me believe a lie. You already took away years I could’ve had with her,” she said. “You don’t get to keep doing this.”
My hands were shaking. “I took her away from you because she is not safe.”
Carol gave a sad little laugh. “There you go. I told you she’d try to make me look bad.”
I rounded on her. “You tried to take my child.”
“Get your hands off her!”
Ellie stared at me. “What?”
I looked back at her and forced myself to slow down, even though my whole body was running hot. “Do you remember the last time you saw her? You were six.”
Ellie blinked. “At the airport.”
“Yes.”
Her voice softened a little. “We were supposed to go see my cousins. Then you came rushing in and dragged me out, crying.”
“At the airport.”
Leave a Comment