Chapter 2 - The Web of Venom
The silence beneath that tent was thick enough to choke on. Nobody moved. Even the breeze died down, leaving only the sound of Aunt Fern's heavy breathing and the faint, cheery pop song playing from the bluetooth speaker on the cake table.
""A funeral plot?"" Theo took another step forward, shielding me with his arm. I could feel the tremors running through his muscles. Theo was the gentlest man I knew—a carpenter who rescued stray kittens and spent three months hand-carving a wooden crib so there wouldn't be a single splinter. But looking at my mother right now, his eyes burned with an animal rage. ""You collected money for our daughter's funeral?""
""It wasn't like that!"" Mom hissed, stepping away from the dessert table. Her eyes darted around the perimeter of the tent, measuring the stares of her social circle, her church peers, her lifelong friends. For thirty years, Evelyn Vance had cultivated the image of the selfless, long-suffering Southern matriarch—the devoted mother who held the family together with casseroles, scripture, and elegant manners.
In less than three minutes, that porcelain mask was cracking down the center.
""Explain it then, Evelyn,"" Aunt Lacy demanded from the second row of tables. Lacy was Mom’s younger sister, and she looked thoroughly horrified. ""You told me Josie had a stillbirth. You told me she was in such deep psychological shock that if any of us reached out, she might harm herself. You told me not to go to her baby shower because she was hallucinating the pregnancy and you didn't want twenty people enabling her breakdown!""
The pieces fell into place like heavy iron gates slamming shut in my mind.
The shower my coworkers had thrown me at the hospital breakroom. The twenty-five empty chairs reserved for my mother's family. The awkward glances from my supervisor when nobody showed up. Mom texting me that she had a ""migraine and a prayer retreat"" and couldn't attend.
I had sat in Theo’s lap that night, sobbing until my ribs ached, wondering what I had done so terribly wrong in my life that not a single blood relative cared that I was having a child. I had thought they hated me. I had thought I was too broken, too much like Nana June, too unlovable.
""You told them I was crazy?"" My voice sounded strange, small and paper-thin, like it belonged to someone else. ""You told my own family my baby was dead so they wouldn't come to my shower?""
""You didn't deserve it!"" Mom screamed.
The dam broke. The composure she wore like expensive jewelry completely vanished. Her face twisted into an ugly, sneering mask that I had seen only behind closed doors when I was eight, twelve, sixteen years old.
""You always had to steal the spotlight!"" she yelled, pointing an accusatory, manicured finger at my belly. ""Belle suffered for two straight years! Two years of needles! Hormones! Crying herself to sleep every night! She was supposed to give me my first grandchild! She had the nursery planned, she had the nursery set up, and what did you do? You got knocked up by accident! You rushed out, couldn't even wait five minutes to brag about it, rubbing it in her face!""
""Mom, stop it!"" Belle sobbed. She was clutching her stomach, her husband Mark wrapping his arms around her to keep her upright. ""Josie drove three hours just to tell me in private so I wouldn't be blind-sided! She held me while I cried! She never rubbed anything in my face!""
""She took June’s ring!"" Mom shrieked, completely unhinged now, turning on Belle as if her favorite daughter had betrayed her. ""She took your grandmother’s inheritance! Fifty thousand dollars that should have been split between you two, and your father let her keep every cent for nursing school! And then she dared... she dared to name that baby June! After that vile, spiteful old woman who looked down her nose at me for twenty years!""
""My mother left that money to Josie because Josie was the only one who visited her while she was dying in that hospice bed!"" Dad shouted.
I had never heard my father shout. In thirty-two years of marriage, Richard Vance had been the quiet anchor—the man who worked sixty hours a week at the lumber yard, who swallowed every passive-aggressive remark, who smoothed over every dramatic outburst to keep peace under his roof.
Now, Dad walked right past Mom as if she were a total stranger. He reached me, wrapped his massive, calloused arms around my shoulders, and pulled me against his chest. I felt a hot drop of water hit my neck. My father was weeping.
""I didn't know, Josie,"" he whispered, his voice cracking into jagged pieces. ""I swear to God on my life, I didn't know. She told me you wanted a quiet pregnancy. She told me you asked the family to back off because you were stressed from working twelve-hour ER shifts. I thought... God forgive me, I thought you just wanted space from us.""
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""Richard, get away from her!"" Mom ordered, her voice shrill. ""She planned this! She showed up here today intentionally to ruin Belle's reveal! Look at her, standing there with her stomach out, gloating!""
""Nobody is looking at Josie's stomach, Evelyn,"" Aunt Lacy said coldly, stepping forward with her phone in her hand. ""We're all looking at you. And we're wondering where the four thousand two hundred dollars went that the prayer circle deposited into your account for Josie's 'memorial fund.'""
