Chapter 279

He could feel his pulse ratchet up as he relived it again, the dream and the reality. “She flew into a rage, all the food she had cooked, all the plates, everything ended up smashed on the floor. She dragged me across the table slammed me into the still-hot stove and held me there, berating me. My father tried to intervene and she turned on him, stabbing him with a carving knife. She stabbed him twice before I could do anything and then she turned on me.” He held out his arm and fingered the long scar that shone silver in the ambient light. “This is from the knife that night.” Her hand coasted over it like she could erase it from his skin and he closed his eyes, wishing she could. “He died on the kitchen floor amidst the smashed crockery and destroyed food. The police came and she pleaded self-defense, saying it was my father who had beaten her, that he was the one who flew into a rage, that he had threatened me and she’d picked up the knife to protect us both. I couldn’t speak, I coul