CHAPTER 2: The Woman Who Wasn’t Meant to Kneel
CHAPTER 2: The Woman Who Wasn’t Meant to Kneel
She knelt slowly.
Her knees touched cold marble.
Tears formed but didn’t fall immediately.
The humiliation arrived first.
Then the pain.
“I said like a good maid,” the floral-dress woman repeated louder, enjoying the attention now.
A nervous laugh escaped someone at the table.
Then another.
The old woman flinched at the sound.
Not because it was funny—
but because it confirmed she was alone in it.
Her hands reached for a shard.
Shaking.
Then stopped.
A voice inside her whispered that she had once been someone’s mother who wasn’t spoken to like this.
But the room had no interest in memory.
Only spectacle.
“Pathetic,” the younger woman muttered.
She leaned closer.
“People like you should be grateful for any job at all—”
May you like
The sentence never finished.
Because the doors opened.
