Allegedly

Allegedly Plot Summary

Introduction

At nine years old, Mary B. Addison became one of America's youngest convicted killers, sentenced for the death of three-month-old Alyssa Richardson. The trial captivated a nation hungry for answers about how a child could commit such an unthinkable act. But behind the sensationalized headlines lay a more complex truth—one buried beneath years of lies, manipulation, and a mother's desperate attempts to hide her own culpability. Seven years later, Mary emerges from juvenile detention pregnant and still fighting for redemption. As she navigates life in a brutal group home while her lawyer works to overturn her conviction, Mary must confront the demons of her past. The real story of that December night begins to unravel, revealing layers of deception that protected the guilty and condemned the innocent. This is not just the tale of a child who lost her childhood to someone else's crime—it's the story of what happens when the truth finally demands to be heard.

Chapter 1: Branded by the Past: A Child Convicted of Murder

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as sixteen-year-old Mary Addison stepped into the group home that would become her new prison. Seven years had passed since the trial that made her infamous, yet she could still hear the crowds outside the courthouse screaming for her blood. "Baby killer," they had chanted. "Monster." The words had carved themselves into her soul. Ms. Stein, the group home director, looked Mary up and down with barely concealed disgust. This was the girl who had killed little Alyssa Richardson—everyone knew the story. The newspapers had made sure of that. Mary kept her eyes down, her dark curls falling like a curtain around her face. She had learned long ago that silence was her only armor. The other girls watched from the shadows, sizing up this newest arrival. Kelly, blonde and vicious, cracked her knuckles. Tara, built like a linebacker, grunted approval of fresh prey. They smelled weakness the way predators smell blood. Mary clutched her state-issued bag of clothes tighter, knowing that in places like this, reputation preceded you like a death sentence. "You'll be in the top bunk," Ms. Stein announced, leading Mary to a cramped room with peeling paint and barred windows. "And don't think your little fame will protect you here. Everyone's got blood on their hands." That first night, Mary lay awake staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster. Somewhere in the darkness, she could hear the whispers of girls planning her destruction. She had survived seven years in juvenile detention by becoming invisible, by swallowing her voice until it almost disappeared entirely. But invisibility wouldn't save her here. These girls knew exactly who she was, and they wanted their piece of the notorious Mary Addison. The fly that buzzed near her ear reminded her of the one in her cell at juvie—Herbert, she had named him. Her only companion in a world that had branded her a monster before she could even spell the word. Now Herbert was gone, crushed like everything else she had ever dared to love. In the morning, the real battle would begin.

Chapter 2: Seeds of Hope: Finding Love and Planning Escape

The nursing home reeked of disinfectant and approaching death, but for Mary, it became a sanctuary. Community service meant escape from the group home, and at Greenview Manor, among the forgotten elderly, she found something unexpected—peace. The dying didn't judge her past; they were too busy fighting their own battles with time. Ted first caught her eye in the dim hallway, wheeling an elderly woman to the dining room. His dark skin glistened under the harsh fluorescent lights, and his hands—scarred from fights she couldn't yet imagine—moved with surprising gentleness. Their eyes met, and something electric passed between them. Mary had forgotten that anyone could look at her without disgust. "I love your eyes," he said one day, sliding his milk across the table to her during lunch. It was the first compliment she had received in years, maybe ever. His voice was soft but confident, and when he smiled, the institutional cafeteria felt less like a cage. Ted was eighteen, aging out of his own group home, with secrets etched into the constellation of scars across his knuckles. He didn't ask about her past, and she didn't ask about his. In the shadow of death that permeated Greenview, they found life in each other's arms—stolen moments in empty patient rooms, whispered dreams of escape, hands intertwined like promises they weren't sure they could keep. "We could go south," Ted murmured, his fingers tracing patterns on her skin. "Get a place, start over. Nobody would know us there." Mary closed her eyes and let herself believe in the impossible—a future where her past couldn't follow. Where she could be just Mary, not the monster from the headlines. When she discovered she was pregnant, their dream crystallized into desperate necessity. But in a group home where privacy was a luxury and survival meant keeping secrets, even love could become a weapon in the wrong hands. Mary touched her still-flat stomach and made a silent promise to the life growing inside her—this baby would know safety, would know love, would never know the taste of a world that devoured its children.

Chapter 3: The Fight for Justice: Uncovering Buried Truths

Cora Fisher had been waiting for this call her entire legal career. When Mary's voice crackled through the phone, desperate and barely audible, the young lawyer felt the pieces of a seven-year-old puzzle clicking into place. She had built her reputation defending the indefensible, but Mary Addison's case was different—it was the injustice that had haunted her since law school. The conference room in Cora's Manhattan office felt like a sanctuary compared to the group home. Mary sat rigid in her chair, hands folded protectively over her growing belly, as Cora spread case files across the polished table. Years of newspaper clippings, court transcripts, and crime scene photos painted a picture that had never quite made sense. "Tell me what really happened that night," Cora said, her voice gentle but insistent. Mary's throat constricted as the memories surfaced—her mother Dawn's glazed eyes as she stuffed pills down baby Alyssa's throat, the violent struggle as Dawn tried to "heal" the dying infant, the moment of horror when Alyssa slipped from Mary's desperate grasp and struck the wall. The truth poured out like poison from a wound. Dawn Cooper, mentally unstable and terrified of losing her freedom, had orchestrated an elaborate cover-up, coaching nine-year-old Mary to stay silent while she blamed everything on her daughter. "Tell them you did it, baby girl," Dawn had whispered. "They won't punish you too bad. You'll be saving your momma." Detective Rodriguez leaned back in his chair as Mary recounted the real events, his weathered face grim. He had always suspected there were missing pieces to the Alyssa Richardson case, but the public's hunger for justice had demanded a quick resolution. A child killer made for better headlines than a mentally ill woman who had manipulated the system. As Mary finished her statement, Cora felt the weight of the fight ahead. Overturning a conviction was never easy, especially one as notorious as this. But looking at Mary—still a teenager, pregnant and alone—Cora knew she was holding the key to freeing an innocent girl who had been imprisoned by her mother's lies.

Chapter 4: Shadows in the House: Danger from Within

The group home had always been dangerous, but Kelly's return from the hospital transformed it into a hunting ground. Her face, scarred from Mary's desperate act of self-defense, served as a constant reminder that in places like this, survival meant striking first or being destroyed. Sarah, the mousy new girl, huddled in the corner of their shared room, wide-eyed and trembling. She reminded Mary of herself at nine—vulnerable, afraid, clinging to the hope that someone, somewhere, still cared. But Mary had learned that hope was a luxury she couldn't afford. Not when Kelly's eyes promised retribution and the other girls circled like vultures. The assault came without warning. Mary was alone in the basement when Kelly struck, dragging her into the flooding stormwater, pressing a blade against her pregnant belly. "Say anything," Kelly hissed, her scarred face twisted with rage, "and I'll cut it out of you." The knife's edge kissed Mary's skin as she fought to protect the life growing inside her. Ms. Stein's investigation into the "accident" was perfunctory at best. Falls down stairs happened all the time in group homes, and pregnant girls were notoriously clumsy. The bruises would fade, the broken bones would heal, but the message was clear—Mary Addison was fair game, and the system that was supposed to protect her had turned a blind eye. As Mary lay in her hospital bed, ribs aching and vision clouded by blood in her eye, she felt the walls closing in. Kelly's blade had missed by inches, but next time she might not be so lucky. The baby moved restlessly in her womb, as if sensing the danger that surrounded them both. Sarah's true nature revealed itself in stages—the gleeful admission that she had killed her mother, the cold calculation behind her supposedly innocent facade. Mary realized she had been sharing a room with a predator far more dangerous than Kelly's crude violence. Some monsters, she learned, wore the faces of angels.

Chapter 5: Maternal Wounds: The Mother Who Never Was

The truth about Mary's identity hit like a physical blow. Dawn Cooper, the woman she had called mother for sixteen years, sat across from Detective Rodriguez and calmly declared, "I have no daughter. Never did. Still don't." The DNA tests would later confirm what Dawn had hidden behind forged documents—Mary was not her biological child. Dawn had found Mary somewhere in the system's underbelly, a unwanted baby she claimed as her own for reasons she would never fully explain. Perhaps it was loneliness, perhaps maternal instinct, or perhaps something darker—the need for someone vulnerable to control, to shape, to sacrifice when necessary. The visitor's room felt smaller as Dawn faced the girl she had raised and destroyed in equal measure. Her purple church suit was immaculate, her smile bright as poison as she tried to maintain the facade of loving motherhood. But Mary could see through the performance now, could recognize the manipulation that had shaped her entire existence. "Tell them you did it, and I'll give it to you," Dawn had whispered years ago, pressing her mother's gold cross into young Mary's palm. It was her final lie, her last attempt to trade her daughter's freedom for her own. Mary had hidden the cross—the smoking gun that could prove Dawn's guilt—but kept the secret, protecting the woman who had thrown her to the wolves. Now, seven years later, Mary held that same cross and felt its weight differently. Not as evidence of her mother's crime, but as proof of her own survival. Dawn squirmed in her chair as Mary revealed she still had the weapon that could destroy her—the cross Dawn had tried to force down baby Alyssa's throat, desperate to remove the pills she had used to silence the crying infant. "Good-bye, Momma," Mary said, walking away from the woman who had never truly been her mother at all. It was perhaps the cruelest punishment she could inflict—abandonment, the very thing Dawn feared most. For the first time in her life, Mary Addison was truly orphaned, but also truly free.

Chapter 6: The Fall: When Protection Becomes Destruction

The hospital ceiling was painted white, like a blank page waiting for a new story to be written. Mary's body was a map of violence—broken wrist, sprained ankle, stitches above her eyebrow where she had struck the stairs on her way down. But the baby survived, and in that survival, Mary found something she had almost forgotten—hope. The truth about her fall came out in fragments. Sarah, sweet mousy Sarah, had revealed her true nature in the darkness before dawn. She stood at the top of the stairs like an avenging angel, her pale face luminous with satisfaction as she watched Mary tumble into the abyss. Kelly had provided the muscle, but Sarah had provided the calculation—the perfect murder disguised as an accident. "You can't leave me," Sarah had whispered, her childlike voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty. Mary realized too late that she had been living with a killer more dangerous than any of them—someone who murdered not from rage or desperation, but from the cold need to control, to possess, to destroy rather than be abandoned. Detective Rodriguez sat beside her hospital bed, his weathered face grim as he took her statement. Two girls had tried to murder a pregnant teenager, and the system had nearly let them succeed. Ms. Stein's negligence, the missed warning signs, the culture of violence that pervaded the group home—it all came spilling out like blood from a wound. Ted appeared at her bedside like a ghost from her former life, his face etched with fury as he saw what they had done to her. His scarred hands trembled as he traced the outline of her injuries, his voice breaking as he promised vengeance against those who had hurt her. But Mary knew that revenge was a luxury neither of them could afford—not when the baby growing inside her needed protection more than retribution. As Winters drove her away from the group home for the final time, Mary watched the building disappear in the side mirror. She had survived seven years in juvenile detention and months in a house of predators, but the hardest battle still lay ahead—proving she deserved to keep the child who had become her reason for living.

Chapter 7: Calculated Sacrifice: Choosing a Future for Bean

The pregnancy had transformed Mary's body into something alien and wonderful, her growing belly a constant reminder of the life she carried. She called the baby Bean, imagining the tiny human swimming in the darkness of her womb, innocent of the chaos surrounding his impending arrival. The doctors confirmed what her heart already knew—it was a boy, a son who would need protecting from a world that devoured its children. Melissa Richardson sat across from Mary in her dust-covered apartment, surrounded by the ghosts of her own loss. Christmas decorations from six years ago still hung like cobwebs in the corners, and baby Alyssa's room remained a shrine to interrupted dreams. The woman who had once loved Mary like a daughter now looked at her with eyes that held equal measures of grief and recognition. "You want me to adopt your baby," Melissa said, her voice flat as old champagne. The request hung between them like a bridge neither was sure they could cross. Mary had hoped that offering her son to Alyssa's mother might serve as some form of redemption, a way to return life to a woman from whom she had taken everything. But Melissa was broken in ways that couldn't be repaired by good intentions. Her husband had left, her dreams had died with Alyssa, and the woman who had once filled Mary's childhood with warmth and knowledge now survived on vodka and prescription pills. "I'm nobody's mother anymore, Mary," she whispered, the words cutting like glass. The courtroom felt smaller this time, less like a colosseum and more like a funeral home. Judge Conklin listened as the evidence mounted—DNA proof that Dawn Cooper wasn't Mary's biological mother, testimony revealing the years of manipulation and abuse, and finally, the revelation that would change everything. Mary had kept the cross, the tiny gold weapon Dawn had used in her desperate attempt to silence baby Alyssa forever. As Cora Fisher held up the evidence that would free her client, Mary felt the weight of seven years lifting from her shoulders. But freedom came with a price—her son would be born into a world where she was still learning how to live, still fighting to understand who she was without the lies that had defined her existence. The baby moved restlessly in her womb, as if sensing the uncertainty that surrounded his future.

Summary

Mary Addison's story ends not with vindication, but with the promise of beginning again. The cross that condemned her mother also freed her from a lifetime of lies, revealing the truth that had been buried beneath years of manipulation and fear. Dawn Cooper's carefully constructed facade crumbled under the weight of evidence, and the girl who had been branded a monster at nine was finally recognized as the victim she had always been. The baby—Benson Kain Addison—would be born into a different world than his mother had known, one where truth had finally triumphed over deception. Mary's journey from convicted child killer to exonerated young mother represents more than legal victory; it's the story of survival against impossible odds, of finding light in the darkest corners of human experience. In choosing to protect her unborn son, Mary discovered the strength to protect herself, breaking the cycle of abuse that had defined her existence. The girl who had lost her childhood to someone else's crime was finally free to discover who she might become.

About Author

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Tiffany D. Jackson

Jackson interrogates societal complexities through the lens of young adult literature, skillfully weaving narratives that tackle mental health, race, identity, trauma, and systemic injustice. Her storytelling is characterized by its emotionally rich and suspenseful approach, often situated within realistic urban environments that amplify these themes. By exploring challenging topics, her work empowers young readers, especially youth of color, to find their voices and pursue their dreams. Through books like "Monday’s Not Coming" and "Grown," she creates relatable characters who navigate complex social issues, providing a platform for readers to engage with these critical conversations.\n\nIn addition to her compelling storytelling, Jackson brings a background in film and media to her writing, having spent over a decade in TV and film production. This experience enriches her narrative style, allowing her to construct vivid, cinematic scenes that resonate with young adult audiences. Her book "The Weight of Blood" exemplifies this blend of visual storytelling and thematic depth, challenging readers to confront uncomfortable truths. For her contributions to literature, Jackson has received accolades such as the Coretta Scott King—John Steptoe New Talent Award and the Walter Dean Myers Honor, cementing her place as a significant voice in YA literature. Her work not only captivates but also educates, encouraging a new generation of readers to reflect on their realities and the broader societal landscape.

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