From Lies To Loyalty novel Chapter 2

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Chapter 2: What Did You Do?

Lizzie

“What did you do?!”

My mother’s voice sliced through the hallway before I had both feet inside the house. The door had barely clicked shut behind me when she was in my face, eyes blazing, breath sharp with fury.

“What did you do to Kenneth?!”

I didn’t answer. I stepped around her instead, slipping off my heels with deliberate calm and placing them neatly by the shoe rack.

If I moved slowly enough, maybe the night would rewind itself. Maybe this would turn into any other evening in this suffocating house where silence was safer than truth.

“I am talking to you, Elizabeth Marie Foster!” she shrieked.

I stopped at the base of the stairs.

My father appeared from the living room, newspaper still folded in his hand, reading glasses perched low on his nose. He took in the scene—my mother trembling with rage, me rigid and clearly exhausted.

“Carol,” he said gently, “why don’t you let her freshen up first? I don’t think Lizzie would have done something disrespectful if Kenneth hadn’t done something to offend her.”

It was the usual script. Calm father. Explosive mother. Me in the crossfire.

But tonight, the script wasn’t working.

“Stop making excuses for her!” my mother snapped, rounding on him. “That’s why she turned out like this!” She jabbed a finger in my direction as if I were something rotten she’d discovered in her pantry. “You keep excusing her behavior until one day you’ll realize you’ve done her more harm than good when she turns thirty without a husband and no one wants her!”

The words hit like pebbles—small, but painful. “Is that all that matters to you?” I asked quietly.

My mother blinked, thrown by the softness.

“Is that all I am to you?” My voice steadied. “A heifer on a market stall?”

Dad winced. “Lizzie, please. Go upstairs. Change. Your mother and I will discuss this like adults. The neighbors don’t need to hear—”

“Why?” I asked him, turning fully now. “Why shouldn’t I talk? I am an adult.”

“You see?” Mom cried. “You see that, Eric? Now she talks back to you too! My God. Where did I go wrong?”

I laughed under my breath. “What’s so wrong with being thirty and unmarried, Mom? Because you got married at twenty-one doesn’t mean I will. Because Dad was laid off and we’re barely making ends meet doesn’t mean I should be sold off to a man like Kenneth Greene.”

Dad inhaled sharply. “Lizzie—”

“Did he tell you what he said to me?” I pressed.

My mother’s eyes turned cold. “Who cares what he said? He’s a man.”

Silence fell.

“It’s your duty to understand your husband and act accordingly,” she continued, voice rising. “You threw wine on him! You spat on him in public! You created a scandal when you know he’s running for mayor next year! How can you be so stupid?”