Chapter 23

As I stand here, trapped between my mother’s vice-like grip and the dark water below, a long-buried fear claws its way up through me. Every inch of my body wants to twist away, run from this hellish, familiar grip. But it’s like being eight again, clinging to the hope that it’s different this time, that she’ll look at me with something other than contempt. “Let me go,” I say. But her nails dig deeper into my skin. “Not until you make that promise.” My blood turns to ice. It’s crazy because, at the same time, I want to laugh at how absurd this is. My own mother is standing here, threatening me on a bridge like something out of a thriller. But looking into her eyes, I know she’s dead serious. Several memories can attest to that. Those cold nights when she’d shove me outside, locking the door from the inside because I’d dared to spill milk on the kitchen floor or did some other silly thing she deemed punishable. I’d stay there for hours, curled up on the floor, listening to her pace back