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Prologue

So when the

shadows deepened and thickened in the corners of rooms within Grand It wasn't so I was hearingme, but about what, I wondered What?

Back in Washington, DC, Mama had finally revealed the truth of otten pregnant with e Her boyfriend at the time was a black man named Larry Ward, and after I was born ements for me to live with Ken and Latisha Arnold Ken had been paid well for it I grew up thinking Beni Arnold was er sister and Roy Arnold was my older brother

After Beni had beenmembers and Mama had told an Randolph to et et me to live with my real fas and the gang violence, but there was another reason, one I wouldn't learn untilfrom cancer and she wanted to be sure I was safe and had the opportunities she would never be able to give me

My real ive Mama more money She said it was the worst ti considered for political office Finally, as a compromise which would still keep ed for me to come here and live with her ed mother, Frances Hudson As far as the rest of the world was concerned, it was supposed to be an act of charity: taking in a poor girl who showed acadeanizations to list under they na one more, fictional or otherwise, was no problem

In the beginning I thought I wouldn't last long in this rich, rural Virginia world attending Dogwood, a private school populated mostly by wealthy kids, but not because I wasn't up to the acadeood student, a reader And I wasn't worried about being treated badly None of these snobby kids could stare me down or make h far worse

No, orried randmother She was a stern elderly woman who liked to lecture and rail at her doctor, her lawyers and accountants, and especially ement of the family businesses Grandhters during those early days and weeks I refused to perle nasty remark about my life with Mama, Roy, Beth and even my adoptive father Ken Arnold

Although we had lived in the projects of Washington, DC, Mah hopes for all of us She wanted irl, no ghetto bad girl, and Grand to be allowed to paint me into that stereotyped picture

She realized it soon enough, and soon enough we agreed to a truce and then, after time, we even developed a warm affection for each other One day I learned she had even included hter Victoria who didn't find out the truth about wood She wanted to blacket me out of the will

I suspected this was the real reason I was given the opportunity to attend a prestigious draet rid of me, a sort of compromise However, Grandmother Hudson insisted that wasn't so

"Do you think I would ever let hter dictate an important decision to ested it