He saw the torn paper on the floor.
He saw the money.
He saw his mother’s hand still gripping my chin.
“Mom,” he said. “Let go of her.”
“I was just telling these people—”
“Let go.”
She released me.
Then she grabbed his arm.
Hard.
“You betrayed your own father,” she hissed. “For her. For a girl who looks like that.”
Jonathan did not pull away.
He turned to face his mother with a calm I had never seen on him.
“No, Mom,” he said. “Not for her.”
His voice dropped.
“For her father.”
The words hung in the air.
Henrietta’s hand rose.
I saw it coming.
So did everyone else.
It never landed.
My mother had caught her wrist in midair.
She held it there without any effort at all, the way you hold a toddler about to touch a stove.
“Not in my hallway,” my mother said.
Henrietta tried to pull free.
