Chapter 8: Echoes in the Mud
Looking at the flannel, the memory of that terrible October afternoon at Bellerive surged back, vivid and unyielding.
It had been a deceptively beautiful day. Madison Brooks, radiant in her plum-colored silk gown, had stood in the center of the manicured lawn, laughing hysterically. In her hands, she gripped a green garden hose, aiming the high-pressure stream directly at me. Already nursing a severe knee injury, I had collapsed onto the wet limestone terrace, my cheap handbag spilling its contents—a few dented soda cans and loose coins—into the dirty puddle.
The crowd of onlookers, draped in designer suits and diamond jewelry, had hoisted their smartphones, recording my humiliation as if it were prime-time entertainment. They sneered at my cheap clothes, mocking what they assumed was our absolute ruin.
Ethan had stood on the periphery of that crowd, frozen. His cowardice that afternoon—his refusal to step forward because he feared losing his standing with the Brooks family—had been the sharpest blade that pierced my heart.
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"I am so sorry, Mom," Ethan choked out, pulling me back from the dark memory. "When I saw you on your knees under Madison’s hose, and when I realized I did nothing... I saw the monster I was becoming. I didn't deserve the Vance name. I had to scrub that stain off my own soul first."
"The water washed that stain away a long time ago, Ethan," I said, placing my hand over his rough, scarred knuckles. "What matters is that you are finally standing on your own two feet."
