CHAPTER 6: THE BAIL HEARING
The bail hearing was held a week later. I didn't go. Marcus had advised me to stay away, to avoid any direct confrontation with my mother. The judge set her bail at fifty thousand dollars, which my father managed to pay using savings my mother hadn't managed to drain. She was released the same day.
She called me that evening.
"Bella," she said, her voice cold and clipped. "I need to see you."
"Mother, I don't think that's a good idea."
"Don't you dare call me that. You've destroyed this family."
"I didn't destroy this family. You did. When you forged my signature and tried to steal my house."
"You're selfish. You've always been selfish. Your brother needed help, and you turned your back on him."
"He needed help? He needed a job. He needed to stop spending money he didn't have. He needed to grow up and take responsibility for his life."
"You have no idea what it's like to struggle."
"You're right. I don't. Because I've worked my entire life to make sure I never had to."
My mother fell silent. Then she said, "Your father is siding with you. After everything I've done for him, he's siding with you."
"He's siding with the truth, Mother."
"There is no truth. There's just what you want to believe."
I hung up. My hands were shaking. But I felt something I hadn't expected: relief. Because I had finally said everything I had been holding inside for thirty years.
My mother was a liar. She had always been a liar. And she had finally been caught.
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I looked at my reflection in the window. I didn't see the scared, compliant daughter who had always done what she was told. I saw a woman who had survived. A woman who had fought back. A woman who had won.
And that was enough.
