My Father Stole My College Spot for His Foster Daughter

The slap landed before the anger in his voice.

"Penelope, I raised you for eighteen years. This is how you talk to me?"

He crouched down, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and yanked my head up.

"Just like your mother. Clamping down and never letting go. Don't blame me for getting rough."

He let go of my hair, stood, fetched a rag and stuffed it into my mouth, then waved at the two men.

"Throw her out back in the pigpen."

I struggled. It was useless.

They dumped me in, and I hit the filthy stone slabs, splattered head to foot with pig muck.

My father stood at the gate of the pen, looking down at me.

"You stay right here. Once Eddie's gone, I'll deal with you!"

The pen door was locked again.

I lay on the cold stone, my whole body unable to move.

I don't know how long it was before Edwina strolled in.

In her hand was the only photo of my mother that still existed. I'd hidden it in my pillow, and she'd dug it out anyway.

She waved the photo in front of my face.

"Your mom was pretty. Shame she couldn't get over herself."

Then she pinched the photo between both hands and tore it slowly apart.

The pieces fell into the pen, onto my face.

I pushed at the rag in my mouth, sobbing as if my chest were splitting, but I couldn't get out a single word.

"Oh, right, Penny."

She propped her chin in both hands and blinked at me.

"Dad arranged a good match for you. Damian Whitney, from the next village over. Honest man, hard worker. The birthmark on his face is a little scary, but still."

"His bride price was a lot, though. Eight hundred. Dad says the money's perfect for my college living expenses."

Eight hundred.

The rest of my life, in his eyes, was worth eight hundred.

Edwina stood and brushed the dust off her skirt.

"Three days from now I get on the train to Columbus. Once I'm at university, you and I will live in two different worlds. You and that litter of little birthmarked kids you'll pop out are only fit to rot in this village for the rest of your lives."

She turned to leave, took two steps, then seemed to remember something and looked back.

"Oh, and those pigs you've been raising. Dad says he'll sell them for my tuition. Once you're married off, all this belongs to your old family anyway."

She walked off, dainty and graceful, and the pen was left with nothing but the pigs grunting.

I braced against the slab and sat up, leaning against the wall.

The rag had rubbed my mouth raw and bloody, and still I couldn't work it loose.

The sky went dark and bright again, I lost count of how many times.

Far off, the firecrackers crept closer, and the cheerful wail of the wedding horns came from the edge of the village.

Damian Whitney, from the next village.

Come to collect me.

I closed my eyes. Tears came on their own, sliding from the corners of my eyes into the dirty coarse cloth of my clothes.

I couldn't move, couldn't speak.

All I could do was stare through the gap in the pen's slats.

Several sets of footsteps drew closer.

Beatrice Swanson, Edwina's mother, spoke first as she came into earshot.

"Damian, you've paid the bride price, sure, but the send-off fee for the bride is another five hundred. Not a cent less."

Damian gave a dull, good-natured laugh. "All right. Whatever you say, ma'am."

Listening to them haggle over me, I clenched my fists in the pen.

Beatrice took the money, and only then did she clack over in her heels and lean down to peer in through the gap in the slats.

"Oh, lord, what a sin. Look how filthy."

She covered her nose, deliberately letting the jade bracelet on her wrist show.

It was the heirloom from my mother's family.

All this time I'd thought a thief had taken it, and I'd grieved over it for a good long while.

I never imagined my father had quietly handed it to her.