Chapter 1 - The Mark Eleanor Recognized
The plate tipped before Lily understood what was happening.
Spaghetti slid across her blonde hair, warm tomato sauce streaking her cheeks and yellow dress.
For half a second, the five-year-old simply stared downward.
Then her mouth trembled.
She began to cry.
“That’s what spoiled children get,” Eleanor said.
Noah came running.
At eight, he was small enough to be frightened by his grandmother and old enough to understand that what she had done was wrong.
He wrapped an arm around Lily.
“Leave my sister alone!”
Lily buried her face against him.
Emma heard the screaming from the front hallway.
She rushed into the kitchen and stopped.
Her daughter was covered in food.
Her son was shielding her.
And Eleanor stood above both children holding the empty plate as though she had done nothing extraordinary.
“Mommy!”
Emma’s shock became fury.
“What did you do to her?!”
Eleanor lifted the plate.
“She needed discipline.”
Emma crossed the kitchen.
She took Eleanor firmly by the upper arms and drove her backward toward the front door.
Eleanor’s arrogance finally faltered.
Emma forced her outside.
“Stay away from my children.”
The door slammed.
Emma immediately turned toward Lily.
She never saw Eleanor step toward the narrow window in the door.
Noah did.
“Mom.”
Emma looked back.
Eleanor’s face was pressed close to the glass.
But she wasn't angry anymore.
She was staring at Lily.
Terrified.
One palm pressed against the window.
Her lips formed a single silent word.
Rose.
Emma slowly turned.
Lily pushed spaghetti from behind her ear.
A small birthmark appeared.
Five rounded petals surrounding a darker center.
A rose.
Emma went completely still.
“Mommy?”
Emma touched the mark.
She had seen it thousands of times.
Lily was born with it.
Doctors had called it harmless.
Emma had never given it meaning.
But Eleanor clearly had.
Emma reopened the door.
Eleanor had already reached driveway.
“Who is Rose?”
Eleanor stopped.
She did not turn.
“Eleanor!”
The older woman finally looked over shoulder.
Her face was pale.
“Where did Lily get that mark?”
“She was born with it.”
Eleanor’s lips parted.
Then she asked a question Emma would remember for rest of her life.
“Did Daniel ever see it?”
Emma stared.
Daniel.
Her late husband.
Lily and Noah’s father.
“Of course he saw it.”
Eleanor closed eyes.
“That means he knew.”
“Knew what?”
But Eleanor walked away.
That night, after children were asleep, Emma searched Daniel’s old desk.
She found nothing about Rose.
Until she opened bottom drawer.
Inside was a photograph she had never seen.
Daniel, perhaps seventeen, standing beside Eleanor.
Between them was a blonde teenage girl.
Behind girl’s ear was unmistakable rose-shaped mark.
Written on back:
ROSE BENNETT
2004
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Underneath, in Daniel’s handwriting:
Mom lied about what happened to her.
