Chapter 2
Bianca recovered quickly.
“She’s lying.”
Hannah looked at her.
I looked at Bianca.
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“You answered before I asked you anything.”
Silence.
Marco climbed from the broken display.
“Hannah is a waitress.”
That tone.
As if occupation could erase memory.
I turned toward him.
“And you punched me before I spoke to her.”
He wiped blood from his mouth.
“You were embarrassing Bianca.”
“No.”
I glanced at my daughters.
“You were afraid I’d hear something.”
Bianca laughed.
“The children called a waitress Mama. Toddlers say nonsense.”
Lily tightened around Hannah’s leg.
Bianca noticed.
Her face sharpened.
“Come here.”
Lily buried her face against Hannah.
Bianca smiled cruelly.
“See what she’s done? She trained them.”
Hannah finally snapped:
“I fed them.”
The room went silent.
I turned.
“What?”
Her eyes filled.
“Every time Bianca brought them here.”
My chest tightened.
“How often?”
“Three or four times a week.”
I looked at Bianca.
She shrugged.
“Lunch.”
Hannah shook her head.
“No.”
Then looked at me.
“She would order food for herself and Marco.”
My daughters watched her now.
“She made the girls sit until they called her Mama.”
My jaw tightened.
Bianca rolled her eyes.
“It was a game.”
Hannah continued.
“When they refused, she took the plates.”
Lily whispered:
“Bread.”
Hannah nodded.
“So I started hiding bread near the service station.”
Grace reached for her.
Hannah crouched automatically.
Bianca sneered.
“Look at that. The saintly little waitress.”
Hannah ignored her.
“Sometimes Emma cried until she threw up.”
I looked at my fiancée.
“You starved my children.”
“They ate eventually.”
There.
The defense.
Alive meant acceptable.
Hannah continued:
“When Bianca went to the powder room, I fed them.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
Six months.
While I believed Bianca was helping my daughters accept her.
Instead, another woman had been secretly feeding them.
I looked at Hannah.
“That’s why they call you Mama.”
She shook her head quickly.
“I never asked them to.”
“I know.”
Bianca laughed bitterly.
“Of course she did.”
Hannah turned.
“You told them their real mother was dead and their father would replace her whether they liked it or not.”
My daughters began crying.
I stared at Bianca.
She smiled.
“Children need reality.”
Then Hannah whispered:
“My father said the same thing about St. Catherine’s.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
May you like
She swallowed.
“He said someone wanted your wife dead because she refused to be replaced.”
