9
259words
"Emma, I will fight you for custody of Sophia. I'll hire the best lawyers."
I stopped. He saw my hesitation and a flicker of hope entered his eyes.
He reached for my hand. "Emma, you don't want to be without her either, right?"
You forced me to do this, Liam.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
"Liam, you really are just like your mother. You'll do anything to get what you want."
The color drained from his face. "Emma… how could you…"
His mother was his deepest wound, the one thing my own mother could never accept about our marriage.
She had been a bar hostess. Liam had been born without a father's name.
She had quit her job to raise him, working menial jobs to get by.
When he was seventeen, he had a chance to go to a national competition, but the fees were too high.
He was going to give up, but his school principal called his mother.
That night, she went back to the one place she had sworn she would never return to.
When a fat, greasy man stumbled out of the red-lit parlor, the seventeen-year-old Liam had lunged at him with a knife.
I was the one who held him back.
He had knelt on the wet pavement that night, sobbing, just as he was now.
He crumpled to the ground, his face in his hands, his broken cries muffled by his fingers.
"Emma… don't do this to me… please…"
