Chapter 1 - CALL ME MOM
“CALL ME MOM.”
Vanessa’s voice cut through the cemetery like a blade.
Eight-year-old Sophie Mercer was kneeling in front of her mother’s grave, her black dress darkened at the knees by wet grass. A small bouquet of white lilies trembled between her fingers.
She looked up at Vanessa with tears already filling her eyes.
“No.”
Vanessa’s smile disappeared.
“What did you say?”
Sophie hugged the flowers tighter against her chest.
“I said no.”
Rainwater clung to the little girl’s brown hair. Behind her, carved into gray stone, were the words:
EMILY MERCER
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
Vanessa stepped closer.
“You need to stop this.”
Sophie stared at her.
“Stop what?”
“Acting like she’s still your mother.”
For a second, Sophie looked like she had forgotten how to breathe.
Vanessa crouched in front of her.
“I’m marrying your father in six weeks. I’m going to be the woman raising you. I’m going to be the woman at school events, birthdays, holidays. So this little obsession with your dead mother needs to end.”
Sophie’s lower lip shook.
“My mom isn’t an obsession.”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
“You know what I mean.”
“I only have one mom.”
That sentence broke something inside Vanessa.
Her hand shot out.
She grabbed Sophie by the hair near the back of her head and forced her face away from Emily’s gravestone.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Sophie cried out.
“Let go!”
“Say it.”
“No!”
“Say, ‘You’re my mom.’”
“You’re not!”
Vanessa’s breathing changed.
“You ungrateful little brat.”
She ripped the lilies from Sophie’s hands.
“No!”
Vanessa threw them into the mud.
Sophie lunged after them.
Vanessa shoved her.
The little girl fell hard onto both hands beside her mother’s grave.
A sharp gasp came from the path behind them.
Vanessa froze.
Sophie looked up.
Twenty feet away stood Adrian Mercer.
Her father.
His face was completely still.
But his eyes were not.
“Daddy?”
Adrian looked at Sophie’s muddy hands.
Then at the flowers crushed near Vanessa’s shoes.
Then at Vanessa.
“What,” he said quietly, “did you just do?”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
“Adrian, this isn’t—”
“I heard you.”
Her face went pale.
Adrian walked toward them.
Every step seemed louder than the last.
Sophie scrambled to her feet and ran straight into him.
He dropped to one knee and wrapped both arms around his daughter.
She buried her face against his chest.
“She made me call her Mom.”
Adrian slowly raised his eyes to Vanessa.
“She did what?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“She’s confused. I was trying to help her accept reality.”
Adrian stared at her.
Then he reached down, picked up the muddy lilies, and placed them gently against Emily’s headstone.
Vanessa forced a laugh.
“Come on, Adrian. Don’t make this dramatic.”
He stood.
Reached for his left hand.
And pulled off his engagement ring.
Vanessa stopped breathing.
“Adrian…”
He dropped the ring into the mud at her feet.
“There’s nothing dramatic about this.”
His voice was ice.
“There is no wedding.”
Vanessa stared at the ring.
Then she looked at Sophie.
And for the first time, the little girl saw something in Vanessa’s eyes that scared her more than anger.
May you like
Hatred.
But what none of them knew was that Vanessa had already made sure walking away from the wedding would cost Adrian far more than a ring.
