PART 1: THE DAUGHTER THEY CALLED A FRAUD
My mother stood in the middle aisle of the county courthouse, pointed one perfectly manicured finger at me, and told nine jurors that I had spent eighteen years pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
“She didn’t serve a single day!” she shouted. “Not one! She’s nothing but a miserable fraud!”
Every head in the jury box turned toward me.
I recognized every single face.
Mr. Hensley, who used to manage the Little League snack stand. Mrs. Pike, my childhood Sunday school teacher. A retired bus driver named Walter Briggs, who still wore his VFW cap and had once told my father he hoped both his daughters would make something of themselves.
Now none of them could look at me without suspicion.
My mother had spent six weeks making sure of that.
The courtroom smelled of polished floors, aging paper, and bitter vending-machine coffee. Sunlight fell through the tall windows in pale rectangles, illuminating the dust drifting above the wooden benches.
Somewhere outside, a delivery truck was reversing.
