Gloria felt the weight of blame cast by that gnarled finger, those narrow, sunken eyes. She was painfully aware that the motion and activity around them stopped as neighbors paused to watch.

Another audience to another humiliation, Gloria thought bitterly. Would she ever escape?

“You’re the reason my son is in jail!” Linda hissed. “The reason the light bill is late and the fridge is empty.”

Glenn had sporadically provided for his mother. Groceries here and there. Sometimes cigarettes. Sometimes cash. And now there was no way for Glenn to provide for her behind bars.

“Please, not here,” Gloria whispered to herself. Not when she’d worked so damn hard. Not when Benevolence had just started talking about her organizational skills instead of her black eyes or her limp.

“Here you are celebrating, cavorting, while my boy rots behind bars because of you,” Linda said, her thin voice shaking with whatever feelings she was still capable of.

The taste of shame was bitter on her tongue.

Aldo stepped up next to her. “Mrs. Diller—” he cut in, his voice cold with warning.

But Gloria stilled him with a hand on his arm. She could feel him vibrating beneath her touch.

Her battle.

“He fed you and clothed you and put a roof over your head for years, and this is the thanks he gets?” She was shouting now, and Gloria absorbed the humiliation as she’d been trained to do. All her work, everything she’d done to give her neighbors something else to see wiped out. Was she always destined to be humiliated?

“Gloria,” Aldo growled at her side. A warning that he was about to step into the fray to take care of things.

She shook her head.

“Mrs. Diller,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I made my choice to leave. We’re all responsible for our own choices.”

“I didn’t choose to have my son sent away! And now who suffers so you can be selfish?” Linda spat. “Me. My son. You ruined my family.”

Gloria felt something else pushing at the edges of humiliation and guilt. Something harder and brighter. And she clung to it.

“I don’t hold you responsible for your son’s actions any more than you can hold me responsible for them. He’s paying the price for his choices.”

“You owe me,” Linda hissed. “You owe him!”

“I owe you nothing. Glenn deserves to pay for his crimes.”

“It’s your word against his,” Linda yowled in despair. “My son was good to you. But that wasn’t good enough for you. No, you had to get rid of him so you could crawl into bed with this cripple!”