Chapter 2: A Pawn’s Legacy

My mother was a pawn, carefully chosen by the first wife to challenge my father’s favorite. She was beautiful and talented, from a family of lawyers—enough to win my father’s heart. When my father was most smitten with her, the first wife gave her a drug that kept her looking young but was fatally poisonous. She wanted my mother to die like Mrs. Lee—leaving behind only her most beautiful, gentle self in my father’s memory.

Southern families, especially those with old money and bigger mansions than sense, play their own kind of chess. My mom, Barbara Mayfield, came from a line of sharp-tongued women and courtroom charmers. She had eyes like green glass and a piano laugh that could make even the coldest judge soften. But she never saw the poison coming—nobody ever expects it when it wears pearls and smiles sweetly over Sunday dinner. And so the first wife orchestrated her demise with the precision of a high-stakes attorney.

My mother cared only about her own death; the rest of the game had already been set by the first wife for the favorite. As expected, the moment my mother died, my father lost it and launched a full investigation. The favorite, who had enjoyed nearly a decade in the governor’s mansion, was thrown out and sent packing. Even her kids fell from grace, forced to move into the guest house.

People like to say that Savannah’s gossip is as sharp as the Spanish moss that hangs from its oaks. When my father unleashed the private investigators, the favorite’s fall was swift—her name erased from bridge club invitations, her children’s trust funds cut off, their laughter echoing from the old, drafty guesthouse at the back of the property. You learn fast here: a misstep in the parlor can exile you to the servant’s wing before the next pot of sweet tea cools.

The first wife played her cards so well, she cleaned house and came out smiling. She kept her promise to my mother, shed a few tears, and smoothly took me in to raise as her own. She registered me under her name, making me the legitimate second daughter of the governor’s family. Her reputation soared, and she won my father’s heart. Killing four birds with one stone, she knelt in church to give thanks, weeping and laughing like she’d lost her mind.

On Sunday mornings, the first wife would pull me close as we took our place in the front pew, her gloved hand clutching mine, her head bowed so low the pastor’s voice faded. She wept into her embroidered handkerchief—tears for the Lord, for her victory, or maybe for the hell she knew was waiting on the other side of her schemes. The congregation whispered, admiring her devotion and strength, never guessing what a woman might do for her place in the world.