Chapter 2

I checked myself out of the hospital that same day, over the doctor's objections.

I stuck to my story — that my husband and son were dead, that I didn't know Dwayne or Carl, though everything and everyone else was still clear in my memory.

The doctor told Dwayne it was probably temporary amnesia brought on by the concussion — I might never get my memory back, or I might wake up remembering everything the next morning.

Both Dwayne and Carl looked thrilled at the news. After that one brief appearance in my room, they planted themselves at Laurel's bedside and didn't leave.

The day I was discharged, it was the same kind young nurse who walked me out. She looked worried the whole time. She hesitated for a long moment before finally getting the words out just as I was about to get in the car.

"Ms. Winslet... that Mr. Arnault and his son — are they your family? They've been by Ms. Winters's side this whole time. I just thought you should know."

She'd overheard part of Dwayne and Carl's conversation with the doctor, and now her face was full of sympathy for me.

I thanked her silently for her kindness, then said flatly, "That's not possible. My husband and son died a long time ago — in a fire. Mr. Arnault and his son are strangers to me."

I got into the car after that, but my mind drifted back to a fire from three years ago.

I'd never forget that day. It was the day I lost the child in my womb and the ability to ever get pregnant again.

I'd just found out I was pregnant that day, and I'd been about to tell Dwayne the good news when he came home drunk out of his mind. The moment he saw me, he started in with the mockery — told me I didn't know my place, that I was nothing but a parasite clinging to him to survive.

Carl had gotten sick again that same night. Between nursing him and dealing with a drunk husband, I was run ragged. I brewed Dwayne a pot of black coffee to sober him up, coaxed him into drinking it, then turned all my attention to Carl.

By the time I'd finally gotten Carl to settle down, I was pregnant and exhausted beyond what I could take, so I slumped against the edge of the bed and dozed off for a moment.

That was when I lost track of what Dwayne was doing.

He'd lit a row of candles in the living room — for what, I never found out — and then passed out drunk before putting them out. He hadn't fully extinguished them. The last embers caught, and by the time I woke up, the house was already on fire.

I carried Carl on my back and dragged Dwayne, dead drunk, out of the burning house. I made sure both of them were safe. But my own cheek was burned by the flames, and the shock and terror sent me into a miscarriage — one that cost me my ability to ever carry a child again.

Afterward, Dwayne blamed me for not being more careful. I was so deeply in love with him back then that when he frowned and asked me how I could have let it happen, I drowned in guilt and took every bit of the blame onto myself. If only I'd stayed alert that night, I told myself. If only.

That was the day their eyes toward me changed — thick with disgust every time they looked at the scar on my cheek that would never fully heal.