Sophia then pulled the teenage boy beside her forward, her smile never faltering. “It’s been a while, Carol. My apologies—we only just flew in from overseas and didn’t have time to change. But you’re so magnanimous, I’m sure you won’t mind, right?”
She then turned to the boy beside her. “By the way, this is my son, Benny Nelson.”
The boy, a striking resemblance to Willy with about five or six shared features, looked me up and down with open disdain before smirking arrogantly. “Auntie, you’re so ugly.”
Before I could react, he turned to Willy and held out his hand expectantly. “Dad, you promised me a gift when Mom and I returned to Chicago. The day after tomorrow is my eighteenth birthday. Last year, you only gave me ninety-nine presents—this year, I want a hundred.”
His words, his deliberate humiliation, burned like acid. But Willy ignored my presence, his attention solely on the boy as he helplessly chuckled and ruffled his hair. “Got it.”