PART 2
“Are you really going to kick me out?” I asked, my voice cracking. “After everything I did for you?”
Sheila stroked her belly and looked at me with disdain.
“Don’t play the victim, Summer. You went to jail because you wanted to,” she said.
I let out a bitter, broken laugh.
“Why did I want to? Austin was driving my car the wrong way on the main road. You were with him. You were both drunk after a party. You ran over a man and ran away. Have you forgotten?”
Austin turned pale.
“Shut up, Summer,” he hissed.
“No. I kept quiet for two years,” I said. “I told the police I was driving because you begged me on your knees.”
My mom started crying, but not for me. She was crying because the truth was out.
“Daughter, Austin had heart problems,” Abigail sobbed. “If he went to prison, he would die. Besides, he had just married Sheila. You were single, you were strong…”
“Strong?” I interrupted. “I sold my car to pay the victim’s family. I lost my job, my name, and two years of my life.”
Lawrence finally got up from the couch.
“That’s enough,” my father barked. “Don’t come here demanding things. The family suffered because of you too. The neighbors talked about us at the market. Having a daughter in prison is a big shame.”
That’s when I saw it clearly. I wasn’t his daughter. I was his shame.
“The one who hit that man was Austin,” I said.
My brother clenched his fists.
“I already thanked you,” Austin muttered. “What more do you want? Do you want to ruin my life now that I’m going to be a dad?”
I felt something inside me close forever.
“I just wanted a family,” I whispered.
No one answered. Sheila took the forty dollars from the table and pushed them into my hand.
“Here,” Sheila said with a smirk. “Take it so you can’t say we are bad. Now leave and don’t cause a scene. Pregnant women shouldn’t have stress.”
I looked at her face. This same woman had hugged me crying two years ago, promising she would never forget my sacrifice.
“Someday you will all regret this,” I said.
Sheila laughed out loud.
“Regret letting go of an unemployed ex-convict? Please, Summer. Get real.”
I grabbed my suitcase and left without looking back. I walked a few blocks until I found a cheap hotel near the subway station. Inside the small room, for the first time since my freedom, I cried. But I didn’t cry for long.
I took out my phone, opened my bank app, and looked at the balance. It showed ten million dollars. That money didn’t come from my family. It came from Raymond Dalton, the richest businessman in the state.
During a big fire at the prison, I had saved his only daughter, Samantha. She was trapped in a smoke-filled room. I carried her out to the yard and fainted next to her. Three days later, Mr. Dalton visited me in the infirmary.
“You saved my daughter,” the man told me. “When you get out, you will have a new life.”
And he kept his word. That night, I got a text message from Samantha.
“I heard you are out,” the message read. “Tomorrow at ten, let’s have coffee downtown. My dad and I have an offer for you.”
I looked at the screen with dry eyes. My family had shut the door on me, but someone much more powerful was about to open a huge one.
