From that night on, Maddie counted the days until their big move. But late one evening, while creeping down the hall to the bathroom, she overheard a conversation through the master bedroom door.
She heard Brenda’s sharp, venomous voice. She was demanding that Mark hurry up with the house sale so they could finally drop the “dead weight” off at a state-run nursing home and put Maddie in the foster system or a cheap boarding school.
The next morning, while they were sitting on their beds, Maddie innocently asked her grandmother what a “state facility” was. She asked if that was the name of their new apartment.
Annie’s face went pale. The realization of her son’s betrayal hit her like a physical blow. She didn’t waste time crying. She reached for her old flip-phone with trembling fingers.
She called her younger son, Steve, who lived a few hours away. As soon as he picked up, she told him he needed to get there immediately—that something was very wrong with the way Mark was handling her affairs.
