7. Patty

I spend my first night out of prison tossing and turning in the twin bed. The eyes on the ceiling watch me. I listen to Adam’s piercing screams in the next room. Whenever he stops crying, I’m convinced I hear the snap of a belt outside my bedroom door. I plug my ears and chide myself for being such a wimp. During my five years in prison, I snored soundly every night, give or take the first month of adjusting. Even after some of the women found out what I’d been convicted of, I had never lain awake all night, never seriously worried for my safety.

I like to think my time in prison was made easier not because of my size, but my charisma. The key – inside prison and out – is befriending the people in power. Once I had the guards and warden in my pocket, the inmates fell into line too.

A new round of wailing interrupts my 6 a.m. musings. I forgot how shrill babies can be.

My parents’ bedroom door opens. I cannot hear Rose Gold’s footsteps over the shrieks of the baby. The cries move farther away – the kitchen or the living room. I swing my legs off the mattress and sit up. I need to get away from these watery blue eyes.

I make my way to the living room, where Rose Gold is giving Adam a bottle.

‘Good morning,’ I say.

I notice the door to the basement is open. I rush to close it.

She glances at me, hair sticking up in several directions. The dark rings under her eyes are pronounced. ‘Morning. Did he keep you up all night? I’m sorry.’

Those two little words ring in my ears. So she can apologize for her crying son, but not for sending me to prison.

‘Slept like the dead,’ I chirp. ‘Have you eaten? I’ll make us eggs.’

In the kitchen I turn on the radio. When I realize ‘Every Breath You Take’ by the Police is playing, I turn up the volume and smile. I pull a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.

Rose Gold sets the empty baby bottle on the kitchen table. She begins to burp Adam. ‘That’s okay. I’ll have a granola bar or toast.’

‘Toast? That’s not enough to fill you up.’

Rose Gold shrugs. ‘I’m not a big breakfast person.’ She keeps patting the baby.

‘Have at least one egg,’ I protest. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised she’s not a huge fan of my cooking.

‘Not everybody eats as much as you,’ she snaps.

Wounded, I shut my mouth. I put two pieces of bread in the toaster and pull three eggs from the carton. A blue flame crackles when I turn on the burner.

Even as a girl, I was on the cusp of too big. My body was square before it turned round, and I winced at the words people used to describe it. Stocky. Big-boned. Thick. They were all unsubtle ways of reminding me I looked more like a boy than a girl. I took up too much space. I finished every brown-bagged lunch. Jimmy Barnett used to joke, ‘You eat the napkin too?’ But no one bullied me over my weight. Their matter-of-factness was almost worse. Everyone knew Patty was the burly one, like they knew the Earth circled the sun and never to order the chili dog from Dirty Doug’s unless you were ready to butt-trumpet your way through the following twenty-four hours.

Imagine showing up to the Dress Barn at ten years old and being told dresses weren’t ‘for you’. ‘None of them?’ I managed to squeak. I glanced at the hundreds of styles in every color and shape. The saleswoman’s grimace was answer enough. It’s hard to be a little girl when you’re not little.

I used to have dreams of getting in shape, of going on some bonkers pepper-juice diet and hiring a trainer to shriek at me on the treadmill, like they do in those reality shows. But Oreos and Diet Coke were easier to scarf down between Rose Gold’s feedings and schooling and doctors’ visits. Not until prison did I realize how powerful I am, how useful my body can be. The more space I take up, the less people push me around.

I scramble the eggs, butter Rose Gold’s toast, and tuck my hurt feelings aside. I glance at my daughter, now glued to her phone. ‘Whatcha looking at?’

‘Instagram,’ she says.

My silence gives me away.

‘It’s a social-media platform,’ she adds.

‘Like Facebook?’ I ask, hoping the question isn’t absurd.

‘Yeah, but better.’

I don’t care to learn the finer points of Facebook vs Instagram, so I move on to what I really want to know. ‘So who called last night?’

Rose Gold’s zombie-like expression sharpens. ‘No one.’

‘Didn’t look like no one,’ I say casually. ‘Looked like you saw a ghost.’

Rose Gold doesn’t say anything. We stare at each other across the kitchen. I wait for her to budge and am surprised when she doesn’t.

‘Was it Adam’s father?’ I guess.

Rose Gold hesitates, then nods slowly. ‘All of a sudden he wants to get back together. After nine months of wanting nothing to do with me. I told him to leave me alone.’

‘Why didn’t things work out between you two?’ I ask, keeping my tone soft.

‘When he found out I was pregnant, he bailed.’ Rose Gold’s voice shakes, but she lifts her chin in defiance. ‘I’d rather do this alone than with a flake.’

I can’t fault that logic.

Rose Gold looks ready to cry, so I change the subject. ‘What’s on the docket today?’

‘Work,’ she says.

‘Do you need me to watch Adam?’ I erase any trace of hope from my voice.

Rose Gold gives me a once-over. ‘Mrs Stone has been watching him since I went back to work last week.’

This is news to me. Rose Gold said during one of our visits that she doesn’t talk to Mary Stone much anymore. I haven’t seen my former neighbor and best friend since the trial.

I set the plate of toast in front of Rose Gold. ‘Do you drop him off or does Mary pick him up?’

‘She picks him up. You might want to make yourself scarce when she comes by.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re no longer one of her favorite people.’ Rose Gold smirks.

‘Oh, that.’ I wave my daughter’s comment away. ‘Mary and I have a lot of catching up to do. Set some things straight.’

Rose Gold looks skeptical. She pushes away her plate of toast, one slice uneaten.

‘Why don’t I watch Adam while you shower?’ I offer.

‘That would be awesome.’ This is the nicest thing my daughter has said to me since we got up this morning. Her relief is almost palpable. We both know how hard it is to raise a child alone. I watch her watch him, eyes drowning in love for her son. With the slightest of hesitations, she hands Adam to me. My plan is starting to work.

Rose Gold closes the bathroom door behind her. The shower turns on. I consider the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, but decide to take care of them later. Who knows how long I’ll be allowed to play with my grandson?

I set Adam on the living-room carpet, belly down. His head wobbles as he tries to lift it. I clap for him and his blossoming neck strength. He sticks his tongue out at me. Cheeky imp.

From our spot on the floor, I can see a worn plastic high chair in the corner of the kitchen. Adam is too young to need it anytime soon. I wonder if this is another of Rose Gold’s neighborhood finds. My mother used to keep my wooden high chair in the same corner.

Adam watches me with big hazel eyes. I babble at him. His bottom lip quivers, and he opens his mouth to wail. I scoop him up, grab his hat and a thick blanket, and rush him through the side door into my parents’ backyard. I can at least give Rose Gold twenty minutes of peace.

The baby starts to cry, and I pull out all my old tricks. I rock him from side to side in big swooping motions. I stick his pacifier in his mouth. I try to burp him some more. Nothing works – Adam keeps screaming.

‘Who pooped in your Cheerios?’ I ask the baby. He’s not amused.

After a while I get him to quiet down. He’s still not silent, but his wails have calmed to a whimper. He was so relaxed yesterday that I’d pegged him as an easy baby. I keep rocking back and forth.

The yard is in sore need of attention. My father used to keep the grass trimmed like his buzz cut, nary a stray blade in sight. Now it’s both overgrown and dying in places, like something you’d find near a haunted house. The oak tree with thick arms still holds our homemade swing, but the red seat has faded to pink. Dad fashioned the swing when I was a kid. He tested it a dozen times before David and I were allowed to give it a whirl.

The side door flies open. Rose Gold bolts through it, wrapped in a towel with dripping wet hair. ‘What did you do to him?’ she screams, her eyes darting around the yard until they land on Adam in my arms.

‘We’ve been out here the whole time,’ I say calmly. ‘Adam started fussing, and I didn’t want you to worry while you were in the shower. He’s just quieted down.’

Rose Gold keeps yelling: ‘I thought you left!’ Her eyes are open as wide as they go, like a terrified horse’s. I half expect her to start foaming at the mouth.

I shush her, hoping to rein in the hysterics. At Rose Gold’s screeching, Adam starts to cry again. To my surprise, Rose Gold begins to cry too. She rips the baby from me and holds him so tight I worry she might break him.

‘I was just trying to help,’ I say, shocked. She must know that if I wanted to steal her baby I’d do a cleaner job of it than this. Wattses are nothing if not meticulous.

Rose Gold turns on her bare heel, baby in arms, and marches back toward the house. Her sharp shoulder blades protrude above the towel as she flees. They remind me of a younger Rose Gold – a sick Rose Gold. She slams the door behind her. The yard is quiet again.

I feel a little guilty for upsetting her, but realize what I’ve learned. Since she picked me up yesterday, Rose Gold has had a certain swagger, a confidence she didn’t possess before I went to prison. She brought me back to this house knowing full well I hate it here. She wants to go for my jugular? That’s fine. None of us is without weak spots.

Now I know hers.

Walking to the side door, I head back inside and tiptoe down the hallway. Rose Gold’s bedroom door is closed. I put my ear against it, straining to listen.

Rose Gold’s footsteps creak on the wooden floor as she paces the room. She soothes Adam with little shushing sounds. He quiets down. I can’t make out the first part, which she whispers.

‘– soon. I promise.’ Her voice breaks. ‘I’m sorry.’

Soon what? What’s going to happen? She must have something planned. Is she going to terrorize me in this house? Kick me out and leave me homeless? Physically hurt me? She isn’t strong enough to overpower me, and I can’t imagine her resorting to violence, but I suppose anything is possible.

I listen at the door for another minute, but Rose Gold doesn’t speak again. The bedroom floor stops creaking, so I tiptoe back down the hall and into the living room. I settle into my recliner, thinking. When I got out of prison, I extended an olive branch to Rose Gold, ready to start fresh. This is her response? Not only does she refuse to take responsibility for her actions, but she thinks she’s going to teach me a lesson. A weaker woman might run off, tail tucked between her legs. But I’m not going to desert my daughter when she needs me most. Underneath all that anger and scheming she’s a woman in need of her mother. Let her think she has the upper hand for now. She’s not the only Watts capable of forming a plan.

Like I said, now I know her weak spot: Adam.

I wait for my daughter to re-emerge.

Half an hour later the master-bedroom door unlocks. Rose Gold walks to the kitchen, places a bottle of milk in the freezer and pulls two others out of the fridge. She washes her pumping supplies in the sink then puts them in a backpack.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, joining me in the living room. She wears khakis and a royal blue shirt with a small Gadget World logo embroidered on the chest, plus her pump bag. She sets down a baby carrier with Adam bundled inside. ‘I overreacted.’

‘Being a new mom is hard,’ I say, forcing sincerity into my voice.

Rose Gold doesn’t say anything.

‘I’m here for you, darling.’ I scan her up and down, searching for clues. Even in long sleeves and pants, I can tell she’s lost weight. When we were in the yard, she looked gaunt in that bath towel. I think back to her weekly visits during my last year in prison. She’d seemed a normal size until her bump started to show, and she only got bigger from there. Of course some mothers lose pregnancy weight fast while nursing, but I didn’t expect Rose Gold’s new body to resemble the old one. She hasn’t been this thin since she was sixteen.

The teenager I raised was all elbows and knees, a hunched skeleton. She stopped growing at five feet and was excruciatingly self-conscious about her body. Back then I tried to reassure her that thinness was in vogue. I told her millions of girls would die for her shape, but her body always embarrassed her. It didn’t help her chest was road-kill flat. She was stuck in a kid’s frame.

That was before her food allergies went away. Before her feeding tube was removed. She had a reason to be skeletal back then: she was sick. Now she is healthy. At least that’s what she’s told me.

The doorbell chimes. I stand at once, but Rose Gold rushes past me. She opens the door a tiny bit. Mary Stone’s warm voice floods the house.

‘How are you doing, sweetie? Are you getting any sleep?’ I miss this concern, the genuine care I know is etched on Mary’s face. She used to reserve that kindness for me. When she knew I was having a tough day with Rose Gold, she’d bring over a plate of brownies or a pitcher of iced tea. We’d sit and talk for hours.

‘I’m okay,’ Rose Gold murmurs.

I pick up the baby carrier and walk to the door. ‘Little Adam is a spirited one,’ I say, forcing the door open wider.

Mary Stone hasn’t changed a bit in five years: sensible mom haircut, dull but trustworthy face, wearing too much pink. God bless her.

Mary’s eyes bug out, and her jaw drops at the sight of me. She’s such a cliché sometimes.

‘Hello, Mary,’ I say warmly. ‘It’s been far too long.’

I lean forward to give her a hug, but she shrinks away from me.

She stares at Rose Gold, fingering the rhinestone butterfly brooch pinned to her blouse. ‘Whose idea was this?’

Rose Gold doesn’t meet Mary’s eyes. ‘Mine. Mom had nowhere else to go.’

Mary’s eyes narrow. ‘I know somewhere she can go.’

This is, without question, the most aggressive statement the lamb-hearted Mary Stone has ever made. Apparently distance does not always make the heart grow fonder.

‘I’ve missed you so much, Mary,’ I gush. ‘I thought about you all the time while I was away.’

Mary grips the doorframe, face purple and knuckles white. How hard would you have to slam a door to cleave a finger from a hand? She snatches the carrier from me and peers inside, as though I might have gobbled Adam whole for breakfast. I need a pointy black hat.

Mary turns to Rose Gold. ‘Why don’t you come by my house after work? We can catch up.’

Rose Gold shrugs her shoulders to her ears, eyes cast toward the floor. This submissive version of my daughter almost makes me miss the maniac screaming at me in the backyard half an hour ago.

‘I’d love to join you,’ I butt in. ‘You and I have a lot of catching up to do as well.’

‘You are not welcome in my home,’ Mary says. ‘Ever again.’

She grips the baby carrier and rushes down the driveway to her car. I guess it’s safe to assume I’m no longer the apple of this neighborhood’s eye.

I step outside the house into a morning cloudy and full of fog. Mary buckles Adam into the backseat of her car. A movement across the street catches my eye. Standing at the darkened window of the abandoned house, watching me, are three shadowy figures. They don’t move when they realize I see them. One of them crosses their arms. I cross mine back, though the hair on my forearms is on end. I glance at the driveway. Mary is gone. When I squint at the abandoned house, the shadows are too. I shake my head and go inside, locking the door behind me.

My daughter studies me, waiting.

‘Reporters did a number on this town.’ I shrug.

‘People might forgive you if you were a little less chipper,’ Rose Gold points out.

‘Honey, when you spend five years in prison for a crime you didn’t commit, you’ve got to make up for lost time when you get out,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not.’

Rose Gold’s jaw stiffens for a second. Then she conjures up a smile. Maybe she fools Mary Stone with this act, but she can’t hide her anger from her own mother. ‘I have to get to work,’ she says. ‘I’ll be home around six.’

Rose Gold slams the door behind her and walks toward the detached garage. From the living-room window, I watch its door open. She begins to back the van down the driveway, but then sits there for a moment, staring at me as I stare at her. Her lip curls in contempt, an expression I’d seen on her once before: 22 August 2012, the day she took the witness stand.

The courtroom sweltered on that Wednesday. The gallery was crowded. Most of Deadwick’s residents had shown up to stick their noses in our business. Plenty of reporters had come as well: they couldn’t resist weaving a few more scandalous lies into their stories. My lawyer – an incompetent public defender who would have been more at home behind the counter of a medical marijuana dispensary – fanned himself and fidgeted in his baggy suit. The day I met him, I knew I was doomed.

The prosecutor had just finished questioning one of Rose Gold’s former pediatricians. This imbecile of a doctor claimed I’d acted ‘fishy’ during office visits. Funny, he’d never said a word about my behavior ten years ago. He never reported this supposed fishiness to any superiors or state CPS agencies. If you asked me, all the prosecutor had established was that this key witness was a key moron, another seeker of the limelight armed with tall tales. The doctor returned to his seat.

The prosecutor, chin raised and shoulders back, looked the part of the justice-seeking hero. He glanced at the notes on his table before turning to face the judge. ‘Your Honor, at this time I’d like to call Rose Gold Watts to the stand.’

My stomach churned. My lawyer had said Rose Gold would testify against me, but I’d hoped she would back out before this day came. I turned to peek at my daughter, in her usual spot in the gallery, sandwiched between Alex and Mary Stone. Rose Gold had been living at the Stones’ townhouse for six months, since the day I was arrested. I wasn’t allowed to contact her.

Alex squeezed her arm around Rose Gold’s shoulders. The little con artist – Alex might have fooled the reporters with her concerned-best-friend shtick, but I knew all she wanted was fifteen minutes of fame. She hadn’t given two hoots about Rose Gold until my trial.

Rose Gold stood, bony shoulders propping up the sleeves of her cardigan. Eyes wide, she swayed a little, as though she might faint. Her skin was even paler than usual. She looked much younger than eighteen.

My daughter was terrified.

Sit back down, I wanted to tell her. Let’s call this whole thing off. I’ll drive you home and tuck you into bed, and we’ll make up stories about princesses and magic spells in faraway lands.

Rose Gold took a shaky step forward, one after another, until she was close enough for me to reach out and touch. I had to stop her. I couldn’t let her put herself through anymore of this agony.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ I whispered.

Rose Gold turned to me. Her eyes were sad, begging me to take her home.

‘Ms Watts,’ Judge Sullivan – who resembled a walrus – barked, ‘if you try to communicate with the witness again, I’ll hold you in contempt of court.’

At the sound of the judge’s voice, Rose Gold turned away and continued shuffling toward the stand. Was everyone in the courtroom blind? Could none of them see how much my little girl hated being there? They must have realized she was being forced to testify against her will.

Rose Gold sat in the witness box. She raised her right hand and swore to tell the truth. The prosecutor asked her to state her name for the jury.

‘Rose Gold Watts,’ she mumbled. The jurors leaned forward, straining their necks to hear.

‘A little louder, please,’ the prosecutor said.

She cleared her throat. ‘Rose Gold Watts,’ she repeated.

‘What is your relationship to the defendant?’ the prosecutor asked.

‘She’s my mom,’ Rose Gold said, eyes cast down, hands gripping the arms of her chair.

‘And it was just you and your mom living at fifteen twenty-two Claremont, correct?’

Rose Gold nodded.

‘Can you give us a verbal affirmation, please?’

‘Yes,’ Rose Gold said.

‘No dad? No brothers, no sisters?’

I gripped the arms of my own chair. This simpleton was going to make my daughter relive every rotten moment of her childhood – every absent family member, every infection, every missed school field trip. I had tried to shield her from her disadvantages. In our house we focused on positives. These buffoons were trying to drown her in her own sorrows.

‘Can you describe your schooling from preschool up through now?’ the prosecutor asked.

Rose Gold launched into a nervous explanation of her transition from elementary school to home-schooling. She lifted a trembling hand to smooth a flyaway on her head. I wondered if she was on her period. The time of month was right. I still hadn’t taught her how to use a tampon. There were so many things I had yet to teach her. She wasn’t ready to face the world alone.

The prosecutor moved on. ‘I want to ask you a few questions about your diet.’

Rose Gold had never fixed a sandwich or folded laundry. I cleaned her room and made her bed and drove her everywhere she needed to go. I had tried to encourage her independence once in a while, offering to leave her at the library for a few hours or sit in the waiting room during her doctors’ appointments, but she always wanted me there. ‘Stay,’ she’d beg, and grab my hand. So I did. Maybe I should have pushed her harder. She was eighteen years old with no driver’s license or friends. She was not equipped to handle the meanness of this world. She was up there, shaking like a leaf, because of me. I should have been firmer, should have said no, should have spoiled her less. But all those years I had needed her as much as she needed me.

‘Were you allowed to have friends?’ the prosecutor asked.

I had been deserted time and again throughout my life. I wasn’t good enough for my family, wasn’t good enough for Rose Gold’s father. Then suddenly I had this little angel who was dependent on me, who loved me more the longer we were together. I had someone to zip the back of my dress all the way to the top, to laugh no matter how cheesy my jokes were. She never got sick of my stories, never asked me to leave her alone. Some evenings, after we’d finished school for the day, I’d head to my bedroom or the kitchen to give her some privacy. She always came looking for me.

Rose Gold seemed far away, dreamy.

The prosecutor repeated his question. ‘Miss Watts, were you allowed to have friends?’

‘No,’ she answered, not making eye contact with anyone, but especially not me. ‘My neighbor Alex Stone was the only person my age I was allowed to talk to – almost always under my mother’s supervision.’

‘What was her reason for keeping you away from the other kids?’ the prosecutor asked.

Rose Gold tucked her hands under her legs, arms stiff. She shivered, obviously freezing. Mary hadn’t bothered to pack her an extra sweater. Some stand-in mother she was.

‘She said she was worried my immune system wouldn’t be able to fight off their germs. Because of my chromosomal defect.’

‘Which we now know you do not have,’ the prosecutor pointed out. The two of them must have rehearsed this little scene.

‘Right,’ Rose Gold said reluctantly. ‘That was an excuse. She wanted us to be together all the time.’

‘Why do you think that is?’

Rose Gold mumbled, just loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘She said she wanted to give me the childhood she never got.’

My face burned to the tips of my ears. My stomach flipped.

‘What kind of childhood did she have?’

Rose Gold watched the prosecutor with wide eyes, searching for the same approval she’d always sought from me. ‘She wouldn’t say much, but I know neither of her parents was very nice to her. Actually, her dad was abusive. I guess that’s where she gets it from.’

I wiped my clammy hands on my pants. The jurors watched me with curiosity; one even wore an expression of pity. I stared down at the table, pretending to examine the wood grain.

In Dad’s defense, he had PTSD during an era when there was no such thing as PTSD, let alone a treatment plan. If I had to guess, I’d say the Battle of the Bulge was tolerable next to his battle with the bottle. He never laid a finger on my mother, but he applied all ten of them and then some to David and me. The country was ready to boil over in the sixties, and my house was no exception.

Dad ran his house with military precision, all yes-sirs and never at ease. My mother, with her gelatinous spine, was his second in command. She never hit us, but I came to dread the threat ‘Wait till your father gets home’ almost as much as the inevitable pounding that would follow. To this day, I can’t look at a belt, let alone wear one. They make the scars on my back itch.

Rose Gold studied the prosecutor, brows furrowed, debating something. In my head I pleaded with her not to say whatever was supposed to come next in their script.

She sat back in her chair, decision made. Quietly she said to her lap, ‘One time I found her in the kitchen, crying that her parents never loved her.’

A lump formed in my throat. I have tried to be a cheerful person all my life, but the morning Rose Gold was referring to, I didn’t have it in me. When my ten-year-old daughter found me crying over the sink, I confided in her. I slid to the tile floor, slumped against the cabinets, and sobbed that my parents hadn’t loved me. Graduations, parent-teacher conferences, school talent shows: my dad never came to any of them. Not like you’re going to win, he’d say, while my mother sat next to him, acquiescing with her silence.

On the kitchen floor, Rose Gold had nuzzled her face into my shoulder. I love you more than all the people in the whole wide world combined, she’d said. Her love helped me pick myself up, allowed me to get breakfast on the table and finish the dishes.

I know I’ve made some awful mistakes, but I would never expose the thing she hated most about herself to everyone she knew.

In the courtroom the prosecutor drove his point home. ‘Is it fair to say Patty Watts created a toxic environment for a child to grow up in?’

Rose Gold nodded. ‘She wouldn’t leave me alone.’

For the second time in as many minutes, I felt like I’d been slapped. Wouldn’t leave her alone? I couldn’t go to the bathroom without Rose Gold following me. She needed my opinion on everything: her outfits, her hairdos, her Barbie dolls’ names. Less than a year ago, she had asked to sleep in my bed, and now she had the nerve to act like I was the one suffocating her. If there was an unhealthy co-dependence between us, it went both ways. Sure, outsiders would find our relationship odd – since when had we cared about outsiders? I’d trusted her. She was my person.

Rose Gold went on, ‘My mom talked over me to my doctors.’ You asked me to do the talking – you were shy and nervous around strangers.

‘My mom picked out my outfits every day until I was seventeen.’ You didn’t trust yourself to match your clothes.

‘My mom chewed up the foods she thought I could tolerate before I was allowed to eat them.’ You said you might not get sick if the food was ground up first.

Through my mind flicked memory after memory. Weren’t we laughing in most of them? Wasn’t she begging me for more hugs, more stories, more approval? More, more, more. Did I ever say no? Did I ever once badmouth her to a neighbor or teacher or doctor? Did I ever leave her on a Friday night to go on a date or see a friend? Did I ever ask for space from her, ever say I wanted the bed to myself, that I wanted to sleep in, that I wanted to take a bubble bath without waiting for her call for more apple juice?

Rose Gold’s chin quivered. ‘I knew she was controlling, but I didn’t know the medicine she gave me was making me throw up over and over and over again, until my teeth started to rot. She starved and poisoned me,’ her voice shook, ‘and she ruined my entire childhood.’ She played with the cuff of her cardigan, sliding the fabric between her index and middle fingers, a method of self-soothing she’d used since childhood. She used to stroke the edges of her blankie that way as a toddler. When I remembered how small and naive she still was, my anger began to subside.

I could protest all I wanted, but the truth was I had no one to blame but myself. If I’d kept a closer eye on my daughter, she wouldn’t have been on this witness stand, testifying against her own mother. I wished I could take back the past six months, start over. Maybe we could go to family counseling.

‘Thank you, Miss Watts,’ the prosecutor said. He turned to the judge. ‘No further questions, Your Honor.’

‘All right,’ the judge said. ‘Let’s take an hour’s recess for lunch.’

The bailiff approached the witness stand. Rose Gold’s fingers twisted in knots. She peered around the room. Her eyes found mine.

I love you, I mouthed to her, smiling.

Her expression darkened. She glanced at the jury, who were gathering their things, and leaned into the microphone. When she spoke, her voice rang out loud and confident. ‘My mother belongs in prison.’

The bailiff hurried Rose Gold off the witness stand. The gallery buzzed behind me.

My jaw clenched. I fought the urge to rip the tie off my dumbfounded attorney and shove it into my daughter’s mouth. All those months I’d thought some shadowy they had gotten to her: Alex Stone, the police, the prosecutor, reporters. I’d thought she was someone else’s mouthpiece, parroting back what she was supposed to say, like a good girl. But she was up there – blabbing about the intimate details of our lives – of her own volition. She wanted to see me rot in a cell, even though I’d devoted my entire life to taking care of her. The shock of her betrayal zipped through me like two thousand volts. I was sure my heart would stop at any minute.

How could you? I thought, watching her. You were more than a daughter to me – you were my best friend. You were my everything.

Rose Gold turned toward me, as if I’d spoken aloud. Our eyes met again, and in hers I saw regret, a plea for forgiveness. That was when I knew: she would come back to me someday. She would pay a price for her betrayal, of course, but we would get through this.

On that day of my trial, and for many years after, my daughter was lost. But in the end I was right: all the vicious people in the world couldn’t keep us apart. She found her way back to me.

This time, dear girl, I promise not to let you go.