Part 1: The Kitchen Floor
The first time I saw my mother’s blood on the kitchen floor, I understood that fear had already moved into her house. The second time, I decided fear was going to leave in handcuffs hb.
My mother, Clara, had married Garrick Vance eighteen months after my father died. Garrick was charming in public, generous at church, and skilled at turning every room into a stage built exclusively for him. At home, however, he controlled the bank accounts, monitored her phone logs, and criticized everything from her clothes to the very way she breathed.
When I questioned the deep bruise forming beneath her eye, she whispered, “I walked into a cabinet.”
Garrick stood directly behind her, smiling warmly. “Your mother is clumsy,” he said. “Always has been.”
Her hand shook as she wiped the tile, while Garrick watched with amused patience, as though her pain were another household mess he expected her to clean alone again.
