“Is it her grades?”
“No.”
“Disciplinary papers?”
“I asked her to wait.”
“No.”
“Then what am I looking at?”
“Open it, Ruby.”
My hands felt stiff as I lifted the cover.
I expected failure. Warnings. Bills.
Instead, I saw an essay.
The title read “The Woman Who Chose Me Anyway.”
Hannah’s name sat underneath.
“Open it, Ruby.”
I looked at Dean Morrison. “What is this?”
“Her scholarship essay,” he said. “It won her full tuition.”
I read the first paragraph.
“My stepmother never asked me to call her Mom. She just packed my lunches, waited outside dance practice, learned which books made me cry, and stayed.
Some women give birth.
Some women choose you every morning after that.”
“Some women give birth.”
My eyes burned.
“She wrote about me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why lie to me?”
Dean Morrison’s voice stayed gentle. “That’s what I hoped Hannah would explain.”
I dropped the page. “If she had full tuition, why have I been sending her three thousand dollars every month?”
“Then why lie to me?”
Dean Morrison’s mouth tightened. “I don’t know.”
“That money came from Tom’s life insurance,” I said. “It came from weekends I worked and from refinancing the house.”
The office door opened behind me.
Hannah stood there with red eyes and a canvas backpack slipping off her shoulder. A book fell to the carpet.
