“Did you drink cocktails?”
David muttered, “They had a package.”
I closed my eyes.
Mom reached for my hand. I pulled it away.
Her face changed. Not hurt. Calculation first, then hurt.
“Jessica,” she whispered, “don’t do this in front of everyone.”
“Everyone watched you do it to me.”
Marlene cleared her throat. “Visiting time is limited. One person may stay for fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll stay,” Mom said immediately.
“No,” I said.
Her head snapped toward me.
“I want them to leave.”
“Jessica.”
“Leave.”
Valerie gasped as if I had slapped her. Dad looked exhausted. David looked annoyed.
Mom’s eyes filled with tears, but I knew those tears. They were not water. They were tools.
“We’ll come back when you’re yourself,” she said.
Then she bent close to my ear and whispered, “You are going to regret humiliating me.”
I watched them leave through the glass.
The stranger in the navy jacket stood at the end of the hall.
My mother saw him.
Her entire body stopped.
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