Mason
Becky didn't sleep that night. I knew because I heard her moving around the kitchen at two in the morning when I got up for water, and when I found her sitting at the island with her laptop open and her face pale as paper, she showed me the article without a word.
Her mother. Some outlet had tracked down the woman who'd cut Becky off at nineteen, paid her for an interview that painted Becky as difficult, ungrateful, a daughter who'd always chased easy money instead of doing things the hard way. I read maybe three sentences before I had to stop, because I recognized that particular flavor of poison. I'd grown up drinking it myself, different family, same cruelty.
"She hasn't spoken to me in six years," Becky said quietly, staring at a photo of a woman I didn't recognize, some stran
