Girl One(34)

“My mother always hid things inside there, it was like her secret spot when I was little.”

“Hid them from—”

“From me. Until I got wise to it.” I looked at the notebook, realization dawning, warm and heady. I flipped to the page with the message, dog-eared by now. Maybe the instruction to tell the world about Fiona was a purposeful message. A directive my mother had left, not to herself, but to somebody else.

To me.



* * *



“I was thinking,” Tom said. “It’s obvious something was going on with Fiona. Margaret clearly thought so too. If we figure out what was happening with Fiona, we’ll figure out where your mother went. Two birds, one stone. So. Who did Fiona spend the most time with? Who were the two women who stayed at the Homestead till the very end? Margaret Morrow”—a nod at me—“and Patricia Bishop. Patricia must have a full picture of what went on with Fiona, right up until the moment Fiona—” He stopped.

“Died,” Cate supplied calmly. “You can say that here. We’re grown-ups.”

“Patricia’s still right there in Daybury,” Tom went on. “If anyone can shed some light on your mother’s life at the Homestead, it would be her. She can explain this letter too. And what Deb said about how she owned the Homestead’s land.”

I took a sip of tea to stall for time. “Arkansas to Vermont. That’s two days of driving if we make good time. Two days back. If I’m not in Chicago by the weekend, I could lose my place in the program. If I haven’t already.” I sighed, restless. “This is the worst possible time for this to happen.”

“We’ll call the Bishops first, then,” Tom said. “Just see what they know. If it’s a dead end, we’ll just get you back to Chicago. Deal?”

“Deal,” I agreed.



* * *



During dinner that night, I kept my mother’s letter right next to my plate, picking at the fresh salad Cate had prepared to complement an assortment of whatever she’d had on hand. Sugary cereal, crackers, half-eaten blocks of cheese, canned ravioli. “I’m not much of a cook,” she’d explained. “But I can at least force you to eat your vegetables. I doubt you’ve been eating well on the road.” The salad was shockingly fresh compared to the bagged lettuce I’d always eaten, the big, crisp leaves garnished with a sheen of olive oil and delicate edible flowers.

Cate had allowed the two of us to spend the night, an invitation she’d extended with what I was recognizing as her usual mix of sarcasm and warmth. “Better than wasting your money on some cheap Goulding motel that’ll either be full of tourists or drug deals or both,” she’d said. But now our meal was tense with an awkward silence. I couldn’t calm my mind, my thoughts swirling, bumping up against each other.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” I asked at last. “For going after my mother like this?”

They both looked at me, startled. Tom frowned. “What? Of course not.”

“She’s your mother,” Cate said, as if that alone explained it.

“I’m so worried about her,” I said, my eyes stinging with sudden tears. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why she has this notebook, or why she was reaching out to the others. I’m worried that the man who attacked Bonnie came back for her, or maybe another one of Peters’s followers. I want to know she’s safe, and I want to know what she’s looking for, and then I also…”

“Also what?” Cate asked gently, when I paused for too long. She twirled her fork, which impaled the bright yellow of a dandelion.

“My mother never wanted me to do this. Any of this. She didn’t approve of the letters Bellanger left me. I used to beg her to read them aloud to me when I was too young, and she wouldn’t. I had to wait till I was older. If she caught me reading the letters, she gave me the silent treatment. She thought it was all a phase. When I told her I wanted to pursue experimental embryology, she barely spoke to me for a week. So the fact that my mother has disappeared right at the worst possible time for me? Right at the end of the first year?” I hesitated, not sure if I could put it into words. “What if it’s all on purpose?”

Cate examined me, still twirling the fork. The watercolors in here were deeper tones, reds and purples, stormier and richer than the greenery in the living room. I looked down, flicking away my half-angry tears. Tom waited, then grabbed one of Cate’s mismatched cloth napkins and handed it to me. I accepted, a little embarrassed.

“It feels like I have to choose,” I said. “My mother, or Bellanger. I never wanted to make that choice. She’s the one who turned it into a competition.”

“I can only imagine how weird this all is for you, Josie,” Tom said.

Cate bit her lip, then clattered down her fork decisively. “That seems pretty ungenerous to your mom, Morrow,” she said. “The woman’s clearly in trouble, I don’t think she was doing this to mess up your exams.”

I prickled. “It just seems strange, that’s all. And my work is important. It’s not only about the exams, you know, it’s—it’s restoring a legacy that’d been lost, it’s trying to change the world for—for other women—”

Under Cate’s intent gaze, I found myself tongue-tied and defensive, but also, weirdly, excited at the prospect of proving myself to her. “Oh yeah?” she asked. “How so?”