I tried to tell Ethan once, to admit what happened, to make him understand it all, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He laughed it off, told me I was drunk and full of it, and to get off his damn lawn.

He actually said that. “Ivy, get off my damn lawn,” in that posh British accent that makes most women cream their jeans, but sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me now.

I am definitely not blameless. If only he’d listened to me, I could have saved him a lot of heartache.

Oh, and I’m back on their lawn now.

Literally.

Are you ready?

Here we go.

Be Shriven

BE SHRIVEN

“You have to be kidding me. There’s no way.”

Ethan handed Sutton a cup of tea. She wrinkled her nose and put the mug on the coffee table. Her taste for the tea was altered, her mouth felt tinny and metallic. Her office felt too small for the both of them, but she wanted to be in there, with her books, her things, Dashiell’s small basket hidden in the closet. The world she’d abandoned, gathered around her like a cloak. She might not ever leave again.

“Graham thinks it’s the most likely scenario. Ivy is your daughter.”

“But she’s not the right age. She doesn’t look anything like me.”

“She’s younger than you think. Graham found a birth certificate at her house. She was born January 16, 1992. She’s only just turned twenty-five, though she’s been posing as someone much older. She was adopted out of the judicial system just after birth. The biological mother’s name isn’t readable on the certificate, but Graham was able to trace the date, time, and hospital to your record. It all fits, Sutton.”

The day was right. Dear God, the day was right.

“You went to jail...?” he prompted.

“For assaulting my stepfather.”

“He was the father? Oh, Sutton.”

“No, he wasn’t. I tried to pass him off as the father, tried to convince the police he’d been screwing with me, so they wouldn’t charge me. But it wasn’t true, and they didn’t buy it, anyway. I don’t know who the father is. I was semi-dating an older boy, and he invited me to a party. I knew I was going to sleep with him, I so desperately wanted to grow up, to be liked, to be the cool girl. He had a slightly different plan for the night. He and his friends got me drunk and high, and he and I had sex, but then a few of his friends came in the room. I don’t remember all of it. I don’t want to remember all of it. I felt like such an idiot afterward, that I do remember. Taught me quite the lesson. I straightened up after that, started getting myself together, but then found out I was pregnant.”