Free All for a Sister by Allison Pittman Page B

privilege. I hated him even more.
    Shoulders straight, I walked into the parlor to find her sitting— sitting —with her hands in her lap, staring at the floor. I allowed myself the luxury of staring at her, this woman whose child had killed my child. Were I of a lesser species or lower class, I might have lunged at her. A life for a life, as God once instructed his people. But then she looked up at me, her gaze like iron, and we took turns stating facts.
    “They may put my daughter in prison.”
    Your daughter killed my child.
    “She’s little more than a child herself.”
    I had no response to that, so I simply asked her what she meant by coming here.
    “I’d hoped to speak with Mr. DuFrane.”
    I told her he wasn’t at home, having no other information to add. Whether he was at his lab, or at the club, or swinging from a skyscraper, I had no idea. I couldn’t be sure he’d been here this morning, or the night before, but I had no reason to indulge that level of detail, and I had no answer to her query as to when he would return. I did, however, tell her that I thought it highly improper for her to come to call on Mr. DuFrane when all matters of the household should clearly be handled by me.
    “I’d heard you weren’t feeling well.”
    When I asked her who’d said such a thing, she said, “Everyone,” with an unsettling shift to her eyes.
    I pointed out that I was obviously well enough to meet with her now and insisted upon a response to the order of her business.
    She looked up at me—and I say up because in all this time I’d refused to sit with her and she apparently lacked the training to know that, again, given our social differences and the fact that she was a sometime employee of our home, she should be the one to stand in my presence. Her gaze, however, seemed to bring us to an equal plane, and without a trace of humility, she said, “I’ve come to ask you to help me bring her home.”
    My knees threatened to buckle, and I clutched the back of the sofa to retain my place of superiority.
    “My daughter. My Dana. You have to help me bring her home.”
    But she killed my child.
    “She didn’t. She couldn’t have. And as a mother, you have to realize that. They wouldn’t let me testify at the hearing, since I wasn’t a witness to . . . whatever happened.” She at least had the good sense to look embarrassed. “My hands are tied, you see. But you, or Arthur—I mean, Mr. DuFrane—he was there.”
    The sound of her voice saying my husband’s name broughtmy too-full stomach to roiling again, and I held my fingers to my lips in an effort to stem the sickness within before asking if that, then, was the reason she particularly wanted to visit with him instead of me.
    “Yes,” she said, looking a little sick herself. She picked at a pill on her wool skirt, her roughened hands snagging on the fabric. “I have heard his account. I was allowed to read his testimony, after. Nothing he says implicates Dana as having done anything . . . wrong.”
    I repeated again the only truth that mattered to me. My child is dead. And then I asked her to leave.
    “Please,” she begged. Her eyes filled with tears and she held her hands as if addressing me in prayer. “I need my daughter.”
    More than I need mine?
    She hesitated long enough that I knew she was considering her answer, which tipped my emptiness to fury, strengthening me in a way peace never could. I didn’t ask her to leave again; I ordered her to do so, stepping back to make a wide berth and stretching my arm in a grand gesture toward the door.
    She stood. “I wish there was something I could do to bring your Mary back. I have prayed every night to wake up and find this all to be a dream, but there is nothing I can do. I cannot bring your little girl back to you. But please listen to me—hear me as a mother. You could bring mine back to me . One word to the judge, and there wouldn’t even be a trial. Certainly you don’t believe that my