Part 2 — The Red Marks
I slowly turned my body toward Evelyn. For the very first time in my thirty-four years of life, I looked at the biological woman who raised me and felt absolutely nothing—she looked like a complete, terrifying stranger.
I walked slowly past the ruined cake. Past the spilled, soapy water. Past the little rose petals Hannah must have arranged with so much excitement and love before everything was violently destroyed.
Then, I dropped heavily to my knees right in the dirt beside my wife.
With trembling fingers, I gently lifted Hannah’s chin. The moment her face met the light, a deep, burning rage hammered against my ribs. There were thick, red friction marks wrapping around her delicate wrists.
“Who laid their hands on you, Hannah?” my voice shook, dropping into a dangerous, low register.
Nobody in the kitchen dared to speak. Hannah tried frantically to look away from my eyes, her shoulders shaking as she tried to pull her hands behind her back. “Thomas, please… don’t make a scene on your birthday. Just let me finish cleaning the stone.”
“Tell me what happened, Hannah.”
She completely broke down then, her face burying into my uniform jacket as she sobbed out loud. “I just wanted to surprise you so much today, Thomas. I made the cake because… because I finally wanted to tell you about the medical results today.”
My breathing stopped completely. “The baby? Is the baby okay?”
Hannah placed one violently shaking hand over the center of her stomach. “I found out the gender at the clinic this morning.”
Before I could even respond, our oldest housemaid stepped forward, wiping her face with her apron. “Sir, Madam Hannah didn’t drop that tray. Your mother read the words ‘Happy Birthday Daddy,’ screamed that a low-class girl didn’t deserve to inherit this family’s name, and smashed the glass stand right at her feet. Then she ordered her to drop to her knees and clean every single crumb before you walked through the door.”
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I looked back over my shoulder at Evelyn.
My mother stood up slowly from the velvet sofa, smoothing down her designer blazer with an absolute, unbothered arrogance. “If that girl is going to live under my family’s roof, Thomas,” she stated coldly, “she will learn how to obey my house rules. She is sensitive, weak, and ungrateful.”
