"What do you have to say for yourself?" Lettie asked as she ruled over the family with me in her crosshairs.
I knew this was coming. I'd tried to prepare myself for it mentally, but I still dearly hated being called out in front of everyone.
"I didn't mean to make a scene, Mom. I got emotional when I saw an old friend for the first time in a long time. That's all."
"That isn't the way I heard it. I heard you broke down on the street like some mentally deranged child."
I didn't think I was that bad. I wondered who had told Lettie about the incident with Bea to begin with. It didn't seem like something King would do. Min might have told her, but he didn't seem the type to exaggerate.
"I had a weak moment. It won't happen against."
"The last thing the Heavenly family needs is weak moments." Lettie sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I'm not sure what to do with you at this point. You've been in the family for three years, and you still need so much handholding for basic activities.
"At this rate, should you manage to have a baby, I don't think I can trust you to raise it."
My gaze flew from my feet to Lettie's face. Now, I was being threatened with having a child I was being forced to conceive taken away from me. Whether I wanted a child or not, there was no way I was okay with not being an integral part of my child's life.
Children were innocent. They didn't ask to be brought into the world. That was on the parents, and in return, the parents had a responsibility to the children. One of those responsibilities was to be in their lives to guide them through infancy and adolescence until the children could grow into fully functioning adults. Nurturing children was instrumental in producing confident, well-balanced adults. I firmly believe this.
I stood up straighter. This wasn't about me now. This was about my hypothetical children. "Then I shouldn't have children."
"What is the point of you being here then, Teela? To keep King's bed warm? A million women would take your place in a heartbeat, and those women would have his baby."
"Apparently, to clean up after you and be your whipping boy."
No one had been speaking before. No one dared speak when Lettie was chastising someone, and yet somehow, the silence deepened into a void of sound and motion while Lettie's eyes grew larger and larger.
About the time I seriously considered whether she might explode, Lettie growled, "King, take your," she stuttered as if deciding on the best noun to describe me, "woman to the reflection room."
"Mom, is that necessary?" King asked.
Ben said, "Mom, no one has been in there since I was a kid. It's not fit for humans."
Lettie's glare flashed to Ben. "Who said she deserves to be treated like a human?"
"Mom, she's King's wife. She didn't grow up like we did."
"Go. To. Your. Room." Lettie left no room for Ben to continue to argue. "Or do you want to join that, that, that bitch downstairs?"
Dejectedly, Ben left with a backward look of regret for me.
I didn't know what this reflection room was exactly, but I gathered that I wouldn't like it.
Lettie's face darkened to a deep red, and her breathing deepened. Maylean and Joshua rushed to her side and tried to calm her. Lettie shouted over them. "King, now! Either take her downstairs or kick her out. Your choice, but if she leaves, she isn't coming back. Not while I live."
King walked to my side and took my arm. His attention was on me. "Come on, Teela, let's get this over with."
"I don't want to go." I let my eyes plead with him as I stood my ground. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"You did, Teela. I don't know what's gotten into you, but you did. No matter what she says, you can't speak to Mom like that."
In the background, Josh called out for his medical bag.
I didn't mean to upset Lettie so badly that she needed medical attention. To be honest, I never meant to snap at her at all any more than I'd meant to say what I had to King earlier. I didn't know what had gotten into me either.
Deep down, I didn't totally regret it either. I felt more alive than I had in a long time.
Slowly, I nodded my head and let King lead me away. He paused at the front door and looked at his cell phone.
Was he calling a car to take me away? Probably. I didn't blame him.
"You're kicking me out? Can I take my stuff?"
I didn't have much worth taking besides the mementos of life with my mom and dad.
"No."
King motioned for me to follow him. He proceeded to the back of the house and the stairs leading to the basement.
I'd never been to the basement. The basement door was kept locked, I assumed to keep the twins out of trouble. Unfortunately for me, King knew the code to key into the pad to open the door.
King flipped on the light inside the stairwell leading down to the depths of the building. "As you can imagine, we were a handful when we were kids. There were four of us and only one of Mom. She had to be creative to keep us in line, especially since she didn't believe in corporal punishment.
"She tried the normal things like sending us to bed without dinner, but we'd sneak food to whoever was hungry, so that didn't work. Time out didn't work well because all four of us shared one bedroom. Standing in a corner became a game as we each tried to outdo each other in how long we could stand without collapsing. We didn't have anything worth taking away, so that didn't leave a lot of options."
By now, we were at the bottom of the stairs. On the surface, the basement looked like any other unused basement. The walls and floor were concrete. Dust clung to everything from the storage shelves to support beams. When we walked further in, I saw a door built into the far wall. It was padlocked shut.
"But Mom found ways because she wanted us to grow up strong with self-control and a sense of pride. She did a fine job. I'd never be where I am now had she not."
King paused outside the padlocked door and dug into his pocket for his keyring.
"It helped that she worked hard and succeeded in the food industry. I was thirteen when we moved into this house. One of the first things she did was create the reflection room.
"It was my fault. I'd broken some kid's nose during a basketball game because he'd insulted me. I don't even remember what he said now, but it set me off at the time. Mom had to pay the medical bills.
"The kid's parents wanted to call the cops. Looking back, I must have really done a lot of damage if they wanted to call the cops. I mean, boys fight. If it was just a normal fight, we'd have apologized to each other and walked away.
"When I got home, Mom brought me down here. She gave me an earful about respect and responsibility and maintaining the image of a child of an up-and-coming successful entrepreneur. I tuned her out after a while. I hadn't gone off on the boy intentionally, so I didn't understand where I should face any consequences, but now I get it.
"That's what you need to do, Teela. You need to understand that all actions, intentional or not, have consequences."
"I'm not a child, King. I know that."
"No, you don't, or you'd never speak to Mom the way you have lately. In the Heavenly family, Mom is the sun, and her sons are the planets that revolve around her. You, Anya, and Maylean are moons dependent on the planets to exist. But none of us exist without the sun.
"So, if Mom wants you to experience the reflection room, who am I to refuse her?"
"Or I can leave?" I suggested, half hoping he would turn me down because I wasn't ready to face homelessness and half hoping he wouldn't because I had a feeling the reflection room wasn't filled with comfy beanbags, happy walls, and upbeat music.
"No, Teela, I can't let you leave. I'm sorry."
And he looked regretful, too.
King clutched the key he'd wanted. "Now, take off your clothes."
"What?"
I clutched my arms around me. I wasn't giving up my clothes.
"You can take them off, or I can, but you will take them off."
"Can't you just tell your Mom I stripped?"
King nodded a chin toward the ceiling behind me. I turned to see a camera with dust floating in the illumination of a small red light.
King expected me to remove my clothes while someone, probably Lettie, but knowing her, the entire Heavenly clan, watched. No, this wasn't happening. I backed up toward the stairs. King didn't have to throw me out.
If this was how things were going down, I'd leave by myself. Forget my new cell phone upstairs or my mom's picture. Forget the beautiful new shoes. Forget King. Forget the whole fucking Heavenly family! I'd given up so much of myself, but I'd maintained my modesty with everyone by King. I wasn't giving it up.
King marched toward me. "Don't do it, Teela. It won't do you any good."
From the direction of the stairs, I heard a click—the door. Someone had locked the basement door. Probably the same person monitoring the camera that turned toward me.
Panic had my heart racing. My throat constricted. I wasn't enjoying this. King couldn't do this to me.
But he could. I'd voluntarily followed him into a confined space where I couldn't leave. Even if I screamed for help, who would help me? I was a prisoner in a world that revolved around the Heavenlys.
I twisted and ended up tripping over my feet. I put out my hands to protect myself from faceplanting on the concrete. I heard the snap before I felt the pain course through my left wrist. I fell down hard, unaware of how close I was to a support column until my head cracked against it.
And then I was aware of nothing.