Then her eyes hardened.
"What did you say?"
Maya swallowed.
She knew she had crossed the invisible line that governed every argument in the Bennett household.
Nicole could criticize Maya's grades.
Her clothes.
Her friends.
Her attitude.
Her spending.
Her plans for college.
But mentioning Laura Bennett, Maya's mother, was different.
Nicole hated it when Maya reminded anyone that another woman had lived in the house before her.
Maya lowered her hand from her burning cheek.
"I said my mom lived here."
Nicole took another step forward.
"And now she's dead."
The words struck harder than the slap.
Maya stared.
Nicole continued coldly.
"And I am the woman trying to keep this family together while you do everything possible to tear it apart."
Behind them, Ethan made a small sound.
Neither woman noticed.
He stood in the kitchen doorway with the brown envelope pressed against his chest.
He had watched Nicole plant the pregnancy test inside Maya's backpack that afternoon.
He had followed her upstairs afterward because something about the way she smiled frightened him.
And in the half-open drawer of her bedroom desk, he had found something that was not supposed to exist.
A letter.
Written in their mother's handwriting.
Dated the day before she died.
Addressed to their father.
Ethan had been five years old when Laura Bennett was killed in a car crash on a rainy November night.
He remembered very little about her final days.
But he remembered her handwriting.
She used to write his name on lunch bags in enormous looping letters.
She drew tiny hearts beside the words.
She wrote I love you, little bear on sticky notes and placed them inside his shoes because he liked finding surprises.
Ethan had kept one of those notes inside a small box beneath his bed.
When he saw the old envelope in Nicole's drawer, he recognized the handwriting immediately.
And when he read the name written across the back, his stomach turned.
Daniel Carter.
He did not know who Daniel Carter was.
But he knew Nicole had hidden something belonging to his mother.
And he knew that whatever the letter contained frightened her enough that she kept it locked away.
Now, watching Nicole step toward Maya again, Ethan finally moved.
"STOP!"
His voice cracked.
Both women turned.
The boy stood in the kitchen doorway, trembling.
Nicole's expression changed immediately.
"Ethan. Go upstairs."
He shook his head.
"No."
"This doesn't concern you."
"It concerns my sister!"
Maya stared at him.
"Ethan?"
He hurried forward.
Nicole stepped between them.
"Your sister has been behaving disgracefully, and your father will deal with her when he gets home."
Ethan pointed toward the pregnancy test.
"That's not hers!"
Nicole's jaw tightened.
"Ethan."
"I saw you!"