An Honest Lie(47)

She was hungry, but she did not want to eat. Eating would be disrespectful to her mother, who would never eat again. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, keeping her eyes low, and walked over to the table. She sat, smashing her toes into the rug and staring down at her hands.

“Eat,” Taured commanded. Still, she hesitated. He picked up the fork and placed it in her hand. Summer gripped the metal and scooped egg into her mouth. She chewed, staring straight ahead. The egg dropped into her stomach with a plop, she could feel it—all the while Taured watched.

“I know you’re in deep pain, Summer. We are all grieving Lorraine. She was a very important member of our community and we loved her very much.”

The eggs threatened to come back up. She held the back of her hand to her mouth and breathed in the scent of her own skin, closing her eyes. She didn’t want to listen to him talk about her mother. The fork clattered to the plate when she dropped it. Her hands moved to her eyes, palms open to cover them—a childish gesture, but what felt like the right one. A moment later, she heard the sound of a chair being moved. She dropped her hands to see him across from her. His knee brushed hers and she yanked it away, squeezing her thighs together.

“Your mother was not well these last months.”

“She was fine. She was the same as always.”

She saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes at being interrupted. “Parents shield their children from the ugly truths to preserve their innocence, Summer. You were not privy to all of the things your mother was moving through emotionally.” That was true, though it hadn’t been her fault, because Taured kept her mother away on his mission trips, and they barely had time to communicate when she was at the compound.

“And you were?”

“Well, yes, I’m her mentor and spiritual leader, and she confided in me when she was having a hard time.”

Summer shook her head; she didn’t believe a word he was saying. He went on speaking, anyway.

“She never got over your father. You know that. She lost her will to live.” His voice was low, like he was telling her a secret, but it wasn’t true—her mother had been fine. At the airport, she’s seen the signs of her old mother again, and then...

“What did you do to her in there?”

Her balled fist hit the table, rattling the orange juice in its glass. She registered the look of surprise on his face, but this time there was no remnant of fear on hers; he had killed her mother, and she was angry. He didn’t answer.

“I’m going to go to the police and tell them you killed her!”

His face changed, grew angrier with each word she said, but she didn’t stop. “You put her in that room and she died!”

The slap came like a whip, striking fast enough to bob her head and leaving a terrible sting.

She touched her cheek with her palm, trying to draw out the pain, staring at Taured not in shock but in anger.

“You can’t call the police, Summer, you can’t do anything. You belong here, to me. Especially now that your mother is dead. Where would you go? Do you know that her father molested her? That’s why she didn’t want to take you back. She knew that you were safe here.”

“She would have told me—” But she knew her mother hadn’t liked to talk about her parents. Had it been for the reason Taured said? No. It was another of Taured’s lies.

“Then why was she taking me to them?” Her voice was a wail, her mouth open; she knew how she looked. Standing up from the table, she took a step back, her fingers gripping the flesh of her cheeks in a panic. She molded the skin there as she thought, and an image flashed in her mind: eating food, spread out on a desk. Taured’s office. A desk? Was that real? She’d never eaten in Taured’s office, she’d never laughed as he touched her hair. Then she was back in her mother’s room, her shoulder blades pressing against the wardrobe.

But Taured didn’t answer her question. Instead, he said, “She was taking drugs to deal with her grief. We tried to help her, but she wasn’t thinking straight.”

Drugs? No, never. She tried to say so, but her voice was as wobbly as her legs. Her dad took drugs, and her mother hated them. Her mama would never.

He opened the wardrobe, then pulled out one of its drawers, waiting for Summer to come over and look. Inside the drawer was a book she didn’t recognize, one her mother would never read. It was self-help: How to Live Well and Free. She stared from the book to Taured, not comprehending.

“Open it,” he said.

“Why?”

The flash of anger in his eyes made her reach forward and flip open the cover. But there were no pages—the book was hollow. Inside were several needles, a glass orb and four foil-wrapped packages the size of quarters.

“It’s not hers.” She looked him squarely in the eyes. “It’s. Not. Hers.”

He hit her again, this time hard enough to move her whole body. Before she had time to recover, he left. Summer crawled onto her mother’s bed and wept. She would not believe that liar; she would not turn on her mother, not even to save herself. “Stubborn like your dad,” Lorraine used to say. “Stubborn to a fault.”

She thought briefly of the memory before she fell asleep: the food, the feeling of being at the desk. Feelings she couldn’t identify with words. Then...nothing.

That night, Marshall and Dawn came to collect her. She’d been asleep when they opened the door and now, as they led her through the familiar halls, she was in a half daze. In the kitchen, they led her to one of the freezers.