Chapter 13 — Dad Told Me to Give You This

Holly stopped beside Gene’s chair.

She was so small that standing, her head barely cleared the table, and she looked up at the woman who had spent three years teaching her she didn’t belong, and when she spoke, her voice carried clear to the far end of the room.

“Grandma,” she said.

“Dad told me to give this to you if you ever ignored me again.” And she held the red box out, in both hands, without a tremor.

Gene looked down at the box, and then at Holly, and her polished smile tightened at the corners, and she reached, out of three years of practiced habit, for the weapon that had always worked before — contempt disguised as reason.