A Lifetime of Atonement for Her

Christine wakes from blindness and shattered hands to hear her husband Damian Blackwood ordering the doctor to break her fingers a ninth time and to remove her uterus. He has done this before, eight times, to keep her from finishing a sketch that would expose Savannah, the woman he plans to marry. Her mother was killed by a driver paid to silence them both, and her infant son was smothered by his own father so Savannah's child, Leo, could take his place.

Damian tells her the surgery was for cancer and that the man who struck her mother was executed. Blind, crippled and childless, she is told she is his only wife, while he promises Savannah a grand wedding first. He believes her too broken and too afraid of the world to ever learn the truth.

When he carries her home to pray for her mother, the portrait waiting in the memorial room is not her mother's. It is Savannah's.