Chapter 4 - My mother grabbed me
I picked Rosie up again.
“We’re leaving.”
My mother, Evelyn Ward, rushed after me.
She was sixty-eight.
Elegant.
Always composed.
The kind of woman who could make a command sound like etiquette.
She grabbed my shoulder.
“Don’t you dare walk out and humiliate this family.”
I turned.
“Take your hand off me.”
She held tighter.
“Bethany made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“She lost her temper.”
“So did I.”
“That’s different.”
Of course.
In my family, violence was unacceptable until the right person committed it.
I pushed her hand off my shoulder.
Not hard enough to knock her down.
Enough to separate.
She shouted:
“Come back here, you bastard!”
Rosie flinched.
That ended whatever patience I had left.
I looked directly at my mother.
May you like
“She is my family. You aren’t.”
Then my father stood.
