The Row(57)

Mama is smart, tenacious, hardworking, and tough. The idea that she really didn’t know after seeing that evidence at the trial just doesn’t fit her at all.

So why was she still so loyal?

“If you don’t want to talk about this, I understand.” I feel his fingers lightly brush through the back of my hair. “I’m sure they went through it all during the trial, though. Do you think she just didn’t believe them?”

“No.” My stomach feels unstable. “I think she lied to protect him.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know. It seems like my mother, my father—everyone I trust—all they know how to do is lie to me,” I say with a shaky voice, not even caring how pathetic it sounds. Sitting up, I look at the picture of Hillary that Jordan had printed out. It sits on top of his notebook.

I stare at the wispy bangs across Hillary’s forehead. I both resent her for her part in Daddy’s affair and feel terrible about what happened to her. Then a distant memory from the trial comes floating back. We’d been sitting behind Daddy in our normal spot. The lawyers for the prosecution were talking and I heard them say Hillary’s name.

Mama had leaned down, smiled, and whispered, “Some of the things they say aren’t for little girls to hear, okay?”

I looked up at her and nodded. Then she slipped a pair of giant headphones over my ears and adjusted them until they mostly fit my head. She pushed a button and my ears filled with a song by the Beatles.

She put one arm around me and gave me a coloring book and crayons. Music so I wouldn’t hear, and something to look at so I wouldn’t see.

But she didn’t have on headphones. And her eyes never strayed down to my coloring book. Who was she trying to protect by pretending none of it was real? Was that moment the start of a lifetime of lies she would send in my direction? Does she need psychological help? Or rather some kind of truth serum for every time she speaks to me?

Suddenly, I’m on my feet and gathering my stuff into a pile.

“Riley?” Jordan stands up and starts doing the same thing. “Where are we going?”

“To my house. We’re not accomplishing anything without new information,” I answer quickly. “And since she’s avoiding me and won’t answer any of my questions, maybe Mama has a journal or a diary or some other way we can get into her thoughts.”

Jordan follows me out of the library without comment, even though he looks like he might have plenty to say about this plan. This time, I’m glad he keeps his thoughts to himself.

I have enough doubts about invading Mama’s privacy without any additional guilt.





26

THE LAST THING I EXPECT to find when I come flying in through the front door is Mama sitting at the kitchen table. Apparently, me coming home unannounced has the same effect on her because when she sees me, she gets up so suddenly that her chair legs screech backward across the floor.

I freeze in my spot and Jordan looks from me to my mother with a panicked expression. I glance at my watch and see that it reads three o’clock. Too late to come home for lunch—not that she ever does—but way too early to be home for the day.

Why is she here?

Mama has a deep frown plastered across her face. She doesn’t speak yet, but instead throws a dish towel over the open box on the table in front of her before moving it down onto the ground beside her chair and retaking her seat.

“Should I go?” Jordan’s athletic muscles coil inward, ready for me to say the word. His dark eyes are wide as he watches me, poised to bolt in any given direction if I tell him.

My first instinct is to shout Yes! and start pushing him toward the front door, but I don’t. Instead, I take a deep breath and shake my head.

“No. You should stay.” My whole body is shaking, but I manage to give him a firm nod. My hands ball into fists at my sides. I can tell from the alarmed look in his expression that he can see the raw fury that’s boiling up inside me.

“Riley.” His eyes are half pleading, half worried. “Are you sure you want—”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I answer, with resolve as strong as the steel cages that hold my father. For the first time in a while, I am sure. I have questions for my mother and I’m not at all afraid to ask them.

Because right now, I am getting the answers that I need—no matter what.

“I didn’t know you’d be home this early.” Mama’s voice is soft, her eyes are on the table. Even though I know it’s probably mostly in my mind, something about her has changed for me now. She was strong. She had no weaknesses before. Now she is something else … an unknown.

My heart jumps to my throat as I see her reach out for the coffee mug in front of her. Her movements are wobbly and she’s struggling to not fall out of her chair. It takes me a moment to put that together with the two empty liquor bottles on the counter. I’ve very rarely seen Mama drink and now she’s at home in the middle of the day, completely wasted? When I gasp, she looks up at me and knocks over the mug. What spills out is far too clear to have any actual coffee in it.

Jordan moves immediately, rushing over to help her clean up.

I feel so small, so humiliated that I could disappear at any moment. It isn’t bad enough that this friend—this boy that I’m beginning to care far too much about—knows all my secrets from the past. Now he has to make new dark discoveries with me? My father, the one-time admitted killer. My mother, the drunk who bruised up my cheekbone.