Clement seized my shoulders. "I know I was wrong. Stop putting on an act to punish me. Just let Camille come out!"
I just looked at him.
A cold, contemptuous curl of my lips.
The hands gripping me shook.
Clement stared at me, and tears fell from his eyes.
"Clement, you really can't see through something this obvious?"
Mildred Sullivan picked up the death certificate.
"Look. Doesn't it remind you of the one I forged for you three years ago?"
She tapped the section with the official stamp.
"It's not even as good as the one I made for you.
"See here? That's not how they stamp these things."
She let out a scornful laugh and looked at me. "Mary, we've both been through this before. Trying to fool us with something like this? You're bringing a knife to a gunfight."
Clement blinked, and the grief drained from his face.
Mildred kept pointing things out to him.
"See the signature? It's so stiff, how could you not notice? And the paper itself, it's obviously been aged on purpose.
"You went through this whole process three years ago, remember? Mary's actually pretty good at this. She even predicted you'd come find her today. Dressed herself in rags and waited for you in a garbage dump."
"That's a lie!"
My eyes stung with tears.
Clement only frowned.
After examining the death certificate front and back several times, the way he looked at me turned to disgust.
"You almost had me fooled."
The death certificate hit my body. His voice was ice-cold.
"Looks like Mildred was right. You're far more calculating than you appear."
"You—!"
"By the end of today, bring Camille home. She's only six. She doesn't need to learn bad habits from a mother like you."
He turned to leave.
I scrambled to my feet, desperate to stop him.
But Mildred stepped between us.
"Mary..."
Her voice dropped to a whisper only the two of us could hear.
"I know Camille's been dead for a long time."
I stared at her in disbelief.
"Want to know why Clement doesn't?"
She laughed softly. "Because I made sure every piece of news about Camille never reached him."
My fists clenched.
"It really is a shame, when you think about it.
"Diagnosed with congenital heart disease right after her daddy died.
"A matching donor heart was available, but her own mother couldn't scrape together a single dollar. Working four jobs a day, not sleeping, and still couldn't cover the surgery.
"You let that little girl miss her only chance at a donor heart."