Chapter 3

Darlene wasn't finished, her confession flowed like a torrent of poison.

"I stayed on as your housekeeper, Eleanor," she declared, a strange pride in her voice. "For nearly twenty years, I stayed close to my Sam. I watched him grow. I loved him."

She gestured towards Sam, who looked pale, his eyes fixed on me, searching.

Then, the Picketts, with a chilling casualness, began to speak of Danny.

"He was always clumsy," Ricky sneered, looking at Danny with contempt. "Fell off the porch once, broke his arm. Didn't need no doctor for that, he toughened up."

An old, poorly healed break. I saw it now, the slight crookedness of Danny' s left arm as he tried to shrink away.

"And that scar on his cheek?" Crystal chimed in, her voice dripping with disdain, still filming. "He got too close to the wood stove when he was acting up. Always a crybaby."

She scoffed, as if his pain was an annoying inconvenience.

Darlene nodded, her face contorted. "We were taking out our frustrations, weren't we? On Eleanor's kid. He wasn't really ours to care about, was he? He was a reminder of what we didn't have."

The guests were murmuring, horrified. Mrs. Davenport looked like she might faint.

Sam took a step towards me, his voice trembling. "Mom? What are they talking about?"

His eyes, so like Charles's, were filled with disgust and a dawning horror. He wasn't looking at Darlene anymore, he was looking at Danny, at the visible signs of neglect, the withdrawn fear in the boy's eyes.

"He's lying," Sam said, his voice rising, turning to Darlene. "You're all lying! How could you... how could anyone treat a child like that?"

Mr. Henderson, Sam's history teacher, a man known for his calm demeanor, stepped forward. "Darlene, what you're describing is criminal neglect, abuse."

Darlene just shrugged, defiant. "He wasn't mine. Why should I care if he got a few knocks? My Sam got the good life. That's all that matters."

Ricky chimed in, "Yeah, he got fancy schools, nice clothes. This one," he jerked a thumb at Danny, "he got what he got."

Crystal, ever the opportunist, added, "We deserve compensation for raising Eleanor's defective kid all these years." Her eyes gleamed with greed.

The raw, unadulterated cruelty of it hung in the air, thick and suffocating. The years of hidden abuse, laid bare with such casual brutality.