To celebrate April Fools' Day, my mother-in-law tampered with my brakes so she could watch me make a fool of myself.
I crashed on the way to drop my daughter off at school. The car was totaled. My daughter was killed. I lost a leg.
Afterward, Zoe Ball covered up what she'd done with my medication.
She and my father-in-law and my husband beat me, screamed at me, told me I was the one who killed my daughter.
I spiraled into severe depression. Every day was worse than death.
My husband decided I was dead weight. He brought his pregnant mistress home.
Zoe didn't think I was there.
She told the whole story to the other woman like it was a joke, laughing about the brakes.
"Honestly, she was driving too fast. You see it on the news all the time, people whose brakes go out on the highway and they're perfectly fine."
"And she's so stupid. I swapped her antidepressants for vitamins and she never even noticed. She doesn't deserve to be my daughter-in-law."
I lost it. I screamed. I demanded answers.
But my father-in-law and my husband closed ranks around Zoe.
"They teach you in driver's ed to check your vehicle before you drive. You didn't check. That's on you, not anyone else."
"My mom just played an April Fools' prank. She messed with the brakes, that's all. You're the one who got behind the wheel and killed our daughter."
The three of them threw me out of the house. I stumbled through the streets in a daze and fell into the river.
When I opened my eyes again, it was April Fools' Day.
I didn't expose Zoe's little prank this time.
Because Memorial Day was right around the corner, and I had something special planned for my dear mother-in-law.
I.
"You should head out soon. Any later and you'll hit traffic."
Zoe Ball held the car keys out to me, her face arranged into a warm, kindly smile.
But if you looked closely, you'd see it.
The smile never reached her eyes. What lived there instead was pure, giddy malice, the gleam of someone waiting for a show.
I didn't look at her. My gaze was fixed on the wall calendar. The date was printed in bold: April 1st. April Fools' Day.
I understood. I had been reborn.
Reborn on the very day my car was destroyed and my daughter was killed.
Zoe Ball loved holidays. All of them. From Arbor Day to Christmas, she turned every occasion into a production. But her absolute favorite was April Fools' Day.
Because on that day, she could torment me under the guise of celebration and no one would blink.
One year, she'd swapped the files on my work USB drive with videos of people trashing their bosses and coworkers. I nearly lost my job.
Another year, while I was away on a business trip, she called to tell me my parents had carbon monoxide poisoning and were being rushed to the ER. After I'd wired the money in a blind panic, she cheerfully announced, "April Fools!"
I'd raged at her before. But the angrier I got, the more she enjoyed it.
"April Fools' Day is for pranks. You can prank me too, you know. Why do you have to take everything so seriously?"
And my father-in-law, Silas Delgado, and my husband, James Delgado, always took her side. Every single time, they called me petty.
So it went.
Zoe's pranks escalated year after year, until today, when she sabotaged my brakes and sent my daughter and me into a crash.
And Silas and James couldn't have cared less about the truth. To them, I was nothing but a burden.
The thought made my blood run cold.
I swallowed the murderous impulse clawing up my throat, arranged my face into the smile of a woman who suspected nothing, said "Thanks, Mom," and took the keys from her hand. Then, calm as anything, I took my daughter's hand and walked out the door.
I didn't take my daughter to school.
Instead, I called her teacher to excuse her for the day, hailed a cab, and headed straight for the amusement park.
Lily Abbott was over the moon.
The park had been open for years. Every one of her classmates had been there at least once. My daughter never had. It wasn't that we couldn't afford the tickets.
