I called my mother right after giving birth to my daughter, but she laughed and said she was too busy with my sister’s birthday party to care. My sister screamed that I’d ruined her special day, and I hung up crying with my baby in my arms. But the next day, they were there, right in front of me… begging me.

They were there to beg.

My mother, Patricia Hale, had never seemed nervous in her life.

She was the kind of woman who could insult a cashier, a waitress, or a crying child without batting an eye, and then get offended if anyone contradicted her. Vanessa had inherited that same refined cruelty, right down to the expensive perfume and the dramatic gestures. But when they came into my hospital room that morning, they both looked pale beneath their makeup.

Vanessa closed the door behind her and forced a smile. “Melanie,” she said softly, as if we were friends. “How are you feeling?”

I stared at her in disbelief. Less than 24 hours earlier, she had called me selfish for going into labor on her birthday.

My mother held up the gift bag. “We brought something for the baby.”

I didn’t answer. Lily was asleep, resting on my chest, wrapped in the hospital blanket, and my instinct told me I should protect her from the women who were just a few feet away.

“Put that on the chair,” I said curtly.

My mother obeyed too quickly. That was the first thing that worried me.

Vanessa approached the bed. “We need to talk to you.”

“No,” I said. “They have to leave.”

My mother pressed her lips together. For a moment, I saw the old Patricia, the one who used guilt as a weapon. But then she looked at Vanessa and seemed to remember why she was there. Her voice softened.

—Melanie, please. Listen to us.

Please.

I had never heard her say that.

I looked at both of them. “What do you want?”

Vanessa adjusted her purse strap. “It’s about Dad.”

That name hit me harder than I expected. My father, Robert Hale, had died eight months earlier of a sudden heart attack. At least, that’s what I’d been told. We hadn’t been particularly close as adults, mainly because my mother controlled access to him, but he’d been the only person in the family who’d ever shown me even a modicum of kindness. When he died, Patricia and Vanessa cut me out of everything. The funeral arrangements. The finances. The paperwork. They told me not to worry because I was pregnant.

I believed them.

“And him?” I asked.

My mother was sitting on the edge of the visitor chair, holding her designer handbag with both hands. —And

Our father updated his will before he died.

I felt a chill. —So?

Continue on next page