Chapter 2 - THE TITANIUM HINGE
Madison slid down the remaining steps on her stomach, her small hands scrambling for her mother’s knit sleeves.
Clara pulled the trembling girl into her chest, burying her face in the soft, vanilla-scented curls.
Her hands quickly checked Madison’s tiny elbows, her knees, her small wrists.
"Grandma pushed me," Madison repeated, pressing her wet face into the crook of Clara’s neck.
Clara raised her eyes.
Evelyn stood at the top of the landing now, her arms folded neatly across her brown wool skirt.
She looked like a statue carved from granite and old money.
"You pushed a three-year-old?" Clara’s voice shook, a low, dangerous vibration in her chest.
"Don't be ridiculous, Clara," Evelyn replied smoothly, turning her wrist to glance at her platinum watch.
"The girl was running with a glass of juice. She tripped over her own clumsy feet."
"I saw your arm extend, Evelyn," Clara spat, her fingers tightening around Madison’s back.
"You have always hated that she looks like me. You have always hated that I am in this house."
Evelyn sighed, a long, weary sound that conveyed absolute contempt.
"Your imagination has always been as defective as your body, my dear."
The heavy front door clicked open, breaking the suffocation in the hall.
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David stepped inside, his blue dress shirt unbuttoned at the throat, his leather briefcase swinging at his side.
He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes darting from his wife on the floor to his mother on the stairs.
