Lillie had made them oatmeal with dried fruit and cream for breakfast. Of course she had.
Melissa was exhausted . . . sleeping on a strange mattress, her brain still buzzing with all the things that could’ve happened to Ophelia. Hit by a car on Route 6! Twisted her ankle and fallen in the snow. Taken by some pervert and . . . But she was safe, thank heavens.
Typical, that she’d come to Lillie. Everyone loved Lillie. The fact that Ophelia even knew what Lillie looked like, let alone where she lived, was a shock. The house was nothing like Bradley had described—crowded, dark, poorly laid out. It was adorable. Homey. All the photos of Dylan and Lillie’s father, her sister, her friends. All the strange little touches. The collection of Portuguese chickens lined up on the windowsill in the bathroom. The sturdy, colorful plates on the kitchen shelves. A framed piece of artwork from Dylan’s school days. His little handprint preserved in clay, hanging in the kitchen.
Totally not Melissa’s style, but not ugly, either. She’d pictured Lillie’s house as dirtier, less . . . lovely. It was the epitome of the type of home Melissa herself had wanted to grow up in, the smell of baked goods and coffee in the air, rather than cigarettes and cheap beer. She found herself strangely choked up when, upon awakening, she’d noticed a little slip of paper taped next to Dylan’s bed. Mommy loves you! it said, and she could tell it had been there a long, long time. Imagine that. Imagine an eighteen-year-old boy keeping a little note from his mother.
Is that what she’d have to do for hers? As if in answer, the baby rolled and kicked, and she grunted a little, putting her hand on her stomach.
“Baby kicking?” Lillie asked, her voice mild.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Always a good sign. Finish your breakfast, and try to get enough rest today. You probably overdid it last night, slogging through the snow.”
“It was beautiful, though.” Melissa stopped, blushing. It felt weird to be chatting with her, the woman whose husband Melissa had seduced and married so easily.
“It is pretty out here.” Lillie didn’t seem to be that angry.
Ophelia had left the table, allegedly to gather up Teeny, but she was throwing a ball upstairs, laughing as both dogs barked and played. The child had come somewhere safe yesterday. At least there was that.
Lillie drove them to the car, then got behind the BMW’s wheel and efficiently backed it out and turned it around. She got out, hugged Ophelia, said, “Use that phone next time,” and got into her car.
“Thank you again,” Melissa called.
Lillie waved in response, then drove off.
“You look ridiculous in that fur getup,” Ophelia said.
“It’s the warmest thing I have.”
“Well, buy something from L.L.Bean like everyone else out here,” she snapped, flinging herself down in the passenger seat.
Melissa got in as well and inched the car toward Route 6, following someone’s tire tracks. “Ophelia, you can’t just run away like that,” she said when they were on dry pavement.
“But I did.”
“Please don’t ever do it again. You worried us all, and you know better. You’re going to have to be punished.”
“What will you do? Take away my friends? Guess what? I don’t have any.”
Melissa looked at her. “Me neither.” She sighed. “Why don’t you think of something? For your punishment. What do you think is fair?”
Ophelia shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Write a letter saying that you’re sorry?”
“But I’m not sorry. Lillie’s normal. She’s actually interested in me, Melissa, not like you and Bridiot.”
God, it was tiring, dealing with this kind of attitude all the time. “I’m interested in you, Ophelia.”
“Sure. That’s why you’re letting my mom take me away. Because I’m so much fun to have around. Send me back to wherever. I don’t care. I belong there. I’m a loser wherever I go.”
Melissa slammed on the brakes and pulled into the parking lot of First Congregational Church. She turned to Ophelia. “No, you’re not!” she shouted, surprising herself. “You are not a loser, Ophelia! You could have been, left in that godforsaken place without anyone to believe in a decent future for you! You could’ve been like me, having to turn yourself inside out to be someone different just to have some security in the world. But you didn’t! I came for you. I made sure you knew how to talk and eat and read. People will look at you and say, ‘That kid is going somewhere. Look how smart she is! How tough and resilient she is.’ Even if your mother takes you home, you’ll still have six years of . . . of advantage.”
“Well, I didn’t have love,” Ophelia said, twisting the knife the way only a tween could. “Maybe I know which fork to use and have a closet full of snotty-ass clothes, but ever since Dennis died, no one has given a shit about me.”
“Really.” Melissa started the car again. “Well, someone walked a mile through the snow in the dark to make sure you were okay last night. I call that giving a shit.”
Once home, Melissa sent Ophelia to her room with instructions to clean it from floor to ceiling, and then the bathroom as well.
Kaitlyn rolled her eyes at the decree and said only, “Glad to have you back, nugget.”
Bradley wasn’t even home. Seemed like he was always around except when she needed him.
I hate everyone, Melissa thought. The ungrateful, sullen child. The sly sister who was running some kind of game. The husband who knocked her up and only thought of himself, acting as if he was the one who’d earned this house, this lifestyle. His parents disapproved of her, and other than Lucia the housekeeper, she didn’t have a single friend.
Had she ever?
“Come into the study,” she told Kaitlyn, chomping on some Tums. Her stomach was churning with acid. Allegedly, that meant the baby would be born with a lot of hair. She wished it was bald.
“Sleeping with the enemy last night, huh?” Kaitlyn said. “So what’s she like, this ex-wife?”
“How much, Kaitlyn?” Melissa asked, sitting heavily behind the desk. She pulled out her leather-bound checkbook.
“How much for what?”
“For giving me custody of Ophelia.”
Kaitlyn’s eyes narrowed. “You think I’m gonna sell my kid to you?”
“Yep. Let’s be honest. That’s why you’re here. You know you can’t take her back to Ohio. You’d be ruining her life. She barely knows you. With me, she has stability and security.”
“Yeah, right, until you get tired of your middle-aged boy toy and trade him in for a younger model,” Kaitlyn said.
“Oh, so that means you’re giving up men until she goes to college?”
“Maybe. Or maybe Harminee needs a real father figure in her life. Not that pretentious asshat parading around in a teenager’s jeans and a stupid shirt.”
“And where in Wakeford are you going to find this upstanding citizen who’s dying to settle down with a felon, her history of drug abuse and her twelve-year-old child?”
“Fuck you, Missy Jolene. You’re just as much of a hillbilly as I am. You fake being high-class, but everyone can tell what you are. A gold digger who got lucky. A whole lotta nothing.”
“How about a million dollars, Katie? Sign custody over to me, and you’ll walk away with enough money for a lifetime.”
Kaitlyn leaned back in her chair and folded her arms.
Melissa folded hers, too. “Two million.”
“Is that all my baby’s worth to you?” Kaitlyn asked, her voice like the snake’s in the Garden of Eden. “You’re sittin’ on a fortune, Missy-Jo. This house has gotta be worth at least a few mil. And that dead doctor of yours . . . I read about his practice down in New York City. I bet you got a lot more than two million when he died.”
Oh, Dennis. He’d been so good to her and Ophelia. If only he hadn’t died. Melissa swallowed. “Five. That’s life-changing money, Katie. You could do a lot with that. Get an education, travel, buy a house.”