Momma loses her neonatal nursing job after becoming dangerously attached to the babies in her care.

Nine-year-old Mary is convicted of murdering baby Alyssa Richardson and sent to juvenile detention.

Fifteen-year-old Mary arrives at a Brooklyn group home to serve the remainder of her sentence.

Mary meets fellow volunteer Ted at Greenview Nursing Home and the two begin a romantic relationship.

Mary tells Ted her period is late, and he gives her an SAT prep book as a birthday gift.

Mary confirms her pregnancy and the state immediately begins proceedings to place her baby up for adoption.

After Mary begs Momma to tell the truth about Alyssa, Momma slaps her and kills Herbert the fly.

Mary throws boiling water on Kelly and leverages Ms. Stein's neglect to reclaim her SAT book and get a new roommate.

Mary and New Girl visit Ms. Cora Fisher at the Absolution Project, who agrees to reopen Mary's case.

Mary tracks Ted to the Tilden Houses and witnesses him with another girl named Leticia.

In a court hearing, Ms. Cora argues for a new trial and secures an order to exhume Alyssa's body.

New Girl's mother dies and New Girl triumphantly announces she has finally killed her.

New Girl and Kelly corner Mary on the staircase and New Girl shoves her down, badly injuring her and nearly killing Bean.

Mary walks to Mrs. Richardson's apartment and asks her to adopt Bean rather than let him go to strangers.

Mary tells Ms. Cora she wants to drop the entire appeal, then leaves the group home for an upstate facility.

Mary Addison was convicted of murdering baby Alyssa Richardson at age nine and spent six years in juvenile detention before arriving at a Brooklyn group home. There she meets Ted, becomes pregnant, and discovers the state plans to take her baby because of her conviction. Desperate to keep her son, Mary contacts Absolution Project lawyer Ms. Cora Fisher, who agrees to reopen the case. As the legal fight gains momentum, violence inside the home escalates until New Girl pushes Mary down the stairs. After recovering, Mary walks to Alyssa's mother and asks her to adopt her baby, then shocks Ms. Cora by demanding the appeal be dropped before being transferred to an upstate facility for pregnant teens.

The headline events of Mary's fight to clear her name and keep her baby.

New Girl arrives at the group home and the other residents beat her, giving her cuts and a black eye.

Ms. Carmen inspects the group home and discovers all of Mary's underwear has holes, revealing Ms. Stein's neglect.

Tara attacks Mary and rips her SAT book, and Ms. Stein confiscates it, telling Mary she is too stupid for college.

Mary vomits while scrubbing toilets as punishment, revealing the first clear outward symptom of her pregnancy.

Ted accompanies Mary to a practice SAT at Brooklyn Tech, where she struggles to register without a valid ID.

Over lunch after the SAT, Ted confesses to holding down a girl while older gang members assaulted her.

Mary visits the clinic for a prenatal assessment, recalling how Momma refused to take her to doctors to hide her bruises.

Mary and Ted have sex in a hospital room beside a dying patient and make plans to run away together.

Ms. Carmen arrives at the hospital and interrogates the volunteer coordinator, trying to identify the father of Mary's baby.

Momma takes Mary for ice cream and a MAC counter makeover, then warns her to stop pursuing Alyssa's case.

The other girls steal Mary's four hundred dollars in savings while she is in the shower.

New Girl moves into Mary's room and introduces her to the Absolution Project as a path to reopening her case.

Ted turns eighteen and is evicted from his group home, leaving him effectively homeless and unable to support Mary.

Kelly is discharged from the hospital with a severely burned face and makes clear she intends to harm Mary.

Before leaving the group home for good, Mary secretly pours bleach into Ms. Stein's coffee as a final act of revenge.

Life in Ms. Stein's group home is dangerous and degrading, as Mary faces violence from her housemates, neglect from her caregivers, and a pregnancy she is determined to protect. She finds fleeting hope through Ted, her pursuit of the SAT, and an unlikely bond with New Girl. Obstacles accumulate steadily: Momma rewards Mary with a sweet outing only to warn her to drop the Alyssa case, Kelly steals her savings and later sabotages her SAT registration, and Ted's homelessness leads him into a secret arrangement with another girl. New Girl's introduction of the Absolution Project provides Mary with the legal lifeline she needs. By the novel's end, Mary quietly exacts one final act of revenge on Ms. Stein before walking out of the group home for good.

The daily struggles and smaller battles that shaped Mary's journey.

Momma brings home Ray, abruptly ending her devoted relationship with Mary and shifting all her loyalty to a new man.

Junior dies unexpectedly in Mary's care, traumatically altering Momma's mental state and reversing their parent-child dynamic.

When New Girl asks how Mary killed Alyssa, Mary privately thinks that she did not mean to throw her.

After Momma's off-schedule visit, Winters confirms to Mary that Momma has stopped taking her medication.

Mary receives her birth certificate and discovers her father's name is listed only as N/A.

At Ms. Cora's office, Mary sees books written about Alyssa's murder and breaks down upon seeing Alyssa's photograph.

Mary tells Detective Jose her version of Alyssa's death and provides a description of Momma's distinctive cross necklace.

Mrs. Richardson visits Mary at the group home and admits she never believed Mary was guilty of killing Alyssa.

A detective confronts Momma with evidence that a jewel from Alyssa's throat matches her cross, and Momma reveals Mary is not her biological daughter.

Ms. Cora tells Mary the case needs a smoking gun, and Mary privately acknowledges she has it but refuses to surrender it.

Momma visits and Mary produces the cross as leverage; Momma admits she saw no reason to take blame for Alyssa's death.

Mary tells Momma she will never allow her to see Bean, then walks away and leaves Momma begging at the door.

In group therapy, Marisol challenges Mary about sending Momma to jail, forcing Mary to admit she cannot bring herself to hate her mother.

Mary privately confesses the true events of the night Alyssa died, acknowledging her own role in the baby's death.

On the drive upstate, Mary talks herself into a fantasy scenario about Mrs. Richardson adopting Bean, hinting at her fragile grip on reality.

Long before the story's present timeline, Momma's relationship with Ray upended Mary's childhood and set a tragic chain of events in motion, including Junior's death and ultimately Alyssa's. In the present, small but startling revelations accumulate—Mary's private admission that she didn't mean to throw Alyssa, her blank birth certificate, and Momma's deteriorating mental state—that build a deeply complicated picture of guilt and innocence. Ms. Cora's growing case forces a confrontation between Mary and Momma over a cross necklace that links Momma directly to Alyssa's death. Marisol's blunt words in group therapy break through Mary's defenses, pushing her to acknowledge both her own role in Alyssa's death and her inability to destroy her mother. The novel ends with Mary confessing the truth only to herself, while her fantasies about Bean's future suggest the cycle of delusion may already be repeating.

The revelations and decisions that slowly unraveled the truth about Alyssa's death.

Tiffany D. Jackson

Novel

Fiction

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