and held her until her breathing steadied.
Then she whispered against my shoulder.
“Mommy, she did it.”
I pulled back. “Who?”
“Vanessa. She ripped the dress herself.”
My stomach turned cold.
Sophie said she had come downstairs for juice and seen Vanessa cutting the seam with small scissors. When Vanessa realized she was watching, she grabbed Sophie’s wrist and warned her to stay quiet.
Then Derek came home.
Vanessa began crying.
And Sophie became the culprit.
“Daddy said if I kept lying, he’d send me away.”
That sentence destroyed whatever
