Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 54931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
It’s June, but the house still has Christmas lights strung around a manger scene--though in this manger scene, it looks more like Mary and Joseph just dropped baby Jesus in the grass and the three wise men are passed out drunk.
“This is where you grew up?” I ask as I open Elizabeth’s car door and help her out.
She nods, looking toward the house like she’s suddenly regretting asking to come here. “It is. Honestly, it still feels like home. I thought it would feel so weird to come back, but it’s like I’ve just been on vacation.”
“You sure you want to do this?”
“I need to,” she says. “Those people pretended to be my family for eighteen years. They didn’t just treat me like crap, they lied to me. I want to hear their explanation to my face. And I kind of want to show you off to my sisters,” she adds with a little less confidence.
I smirk. “Fair enough. Let’s go.”
We approach the door and I let Elizabeth knock. After a few seconds, a man in his mid-fifties with a soft belly and a pissed off look on his face opens it. “Elizabeth?” he asks, looking past me.
“Can we come in?” she asks.
“We’re coming in,” I say, correcting her and pushing past her foster father--David, which I’m surprised I remember after only scanning her files.
The house smells like burnt popcorn. I see three women sitting on the couch, bathed in blue flickering light from a TV screen as a movie blares from the speakers. Two look to be youngish teenage girls and the other must be her foster mother. The two younger girls immediately sit up so straight when they see us that they spill the bowl of popcorn they were sharing. I can’t remember the names of any of the girls, though I know I came across them in the files as well.
“Elizabeth?” asks the thicker of the two girls with red hair.
Her mother pauses the TV, thrusting us into thick silence.
“I know the truth now,” says Elizabeth. “I know you aren’t my real parents. You knew who I was the whole time, you knew about my parents.” She shakes her head disgustedly, turning to look to her sisters. “You two knew too, didn’t you?”
They say nothing, but the guilt on their faces is plain.
Her dad crosses his arms, leaning back in a casually dismissive way that boils my blood. Foster daughter or not, he raised Elizabeth for eighteen years and he doesn’t even have the fucking dignity to look ashamed when she confronts him for this?
“Sure. We knew,” says David. “But we never wanted you. You came in our fucking house screaming and wailing--some stranger’s baby. We changed your diapers, suffered through sleepless nights, fed you, and we gave you a place to sleep. That’s all they asked us to do. They didn’t pay us to love you. They didn’t even pay us to like you.”
“Pay you?” she asks, turning to me.
I frown, meeting her confused glance with confusion of my own. Payment? “There was nothing about payment in the official files. They said you were distant cousins of Elizabeth’s biological parents and you offered to take her in.”
David scoffs. “No. We were approached by a woman who offered us more money than I could make in twenty years. She said we just had to keep the girl alive until she was eighteen. That was it.”
“You all knew?” asks Elizabeth, looking to her foster mother and sisters.
Her sisters at least have the dignity to look ashamed now, even if her mother is glaring defiantly back. “Anyone would have taken the offer in our position,” she says.
I’ve heard too much to keep quiet. This may be Elizabeth’s chance at finding closure, but I can’t listen to these rats justify their behavior any longer. “Only the lowest scum would hate a child for something completely out of her control. You’re all cowards.”
David ignores me, moving toward Elizabeth and jabbing a finger at her. “Look at you. You think you’re good enough to be a princess? You think you’re better than us now because they dressed you up like a cheap whore and dyed your hair? You were never--”
I slam my fist into David’s jaw. For a man who talks as much as he does, I would’ve thought he’d take the punch better, but he crumbles like I hit him with a sledge hammer. The girls all jump back. Elizabeth’s little sisters clap hands to their mouths, looking from me to the groaning form of their father on the ground.
“Elizabeth is a princess. She’s my princess. And soon, she will be my queen. You may have been too blind to see her for what she is, but I see it, and soon the entire kingdom will.”
Elizabeth looks down at David, who is slowly bringing his knees under him and trying to get up. Her lips contort in sudden rage and she steps forward, kicking him hard in the side and sending him back to the ground.