“See?” my mother said, her voice flat.

“I told you she was weak.”

I gathered Megan closer to my chest, my knees sinking into the hard, cold linoleum.

Her skin felt clammy and ice-cold under my palms.

“Megan, stay with me,” I whispered, shaking her shoulder gently.

She didn’t blink, her eyelids only fluttering as her breath came in short, ragged gasps.

My mother stood three feet away, her hands folded neatly over her wool coat.

She looked down at Megan with a face like carved stone.

“Get away from her, Mother,” I said, my voice shaking.

“I am only doing what is necessary, Jake,” she said, her voice flat and even.

“What did you do to her?” I shouted, the sound echoing off the bare kitchen walls.

My mother took a slow, deliberate breath, adjusting her leather handbag on her shoulder.

“She was planning to run,” my mother said.

“She was going to take my grandson all the way to Wisconsin.”

“I had to discipline her, Jake.”

“I had to make sure she stayed right here where she belongs.”