“Your husband?” Henrietta laughed. “I came to see my husband, Millie. He’s in room 312 with a police officer at the door because of you.”
She turned her eyes on me.
They went slowly over the mint-green dress.
Then they landed on my face.
“And this must be the project.”
Her hand shot out.
She snatched the pages from my mother and tore them in half.
Then in half again.
The pieces fluttered onto the polished floor like snow.
“My son has been sneaking around for six weeks with this girl’s sob story,” she said. “Feeling sorry for her. Doing his little community service.”
There it was again.
Community service.
She gripped my chin between two manicured fingers and turned my face toward the light.
Her nails were cold.
“Look at this, everyone,” she said. “He pitied her. That’s all it ever was. Nobody chooses a face like that on purpose.”
