Girl One(76)
“We weren’t invited to the funeral,” Isabelle piped up. “None of us.”
Cate and I looked at her, surprised. My mother and I hadn’t attended the funeral. We’d already been in Illinois, and I’d been lost in the haze of grief and confusion. Our absence hadn’t struck me as strange before now. I’d just assumed my mother didn’t want anything to do with the Homestead.
“Maybe they were worried about more attacks,” Cate said.
“But Bellanger wanted us at the funeral.” Isabelle said. “There were empty chairs up front, just waiting for us. The eulogy was about Bellanger’s accomplishments. That’s us. We should have been there, but Mrs. Bellanger barred us.”
It was difficult to picture Mrs. Bellanger at all, that face I’d only ever seen adjacent to Bellanger’s own. She only made sense in a particular context. I tried to take her usual expression, sweet and limp as cake batter, and stir it up into rage, despair, grief. I recalled only an impression of her hair. She’d once dyed it from mousy blond to a darker brown that matched Angela Grassi’s—or my mother’s.
We’d all changed recently. Cate had chopped my hair to my chin, giving me bangs that made my eyes look shadowy, my cheekbones higher. She dyed it an inconspicuous blond, muting the similarity to my mother in a way I’d never quite had the courage to do. I looked in the mirror and saw neither Mother One nor Girl One. Not the original, not the copy. Somebody new. Cate had shorn her own hair to ear-length, leaving it the same color. The shorter length made her curls spring wildly, a thick halo. Isabelle dyed her hair a lusterless black: she was arresting, the mousy girl I’d first met almost entirely erased.
“My mother said Mrs. Bellanger blamed us for taking away her husband. She wanted the funeral to just be hers and the boys’.” Isabelle repeated this in a way both careless and exact, like it was something she’d heard her mother say a thousand times.
We were quiet, imagining it. The dry rage that had been growing, the brittle layer of loneliness, resentment, spread out over the Bellangers’ entire childhood.
A soft knock and then Tom entered, carrying more supplies, wearing his usual hangdog expression. He’d been sleeping in the car lately, keeping an eye out for trouble, but also, I thought, paying his penance for what had happened in Kithira. I caught a new wariness to his attitude now. He understood who we truly were.
“I bring sustenance,” he announced.
“Thomas,” Cate said, running her hands through her hair till her curls bristled like a lion’s mane. “Your time to shine. What do you know about the Bellangers? Where they are now?”
“The Bellangers?” he repeated. “You mean … the other ones?”
“His wife. His kids.” Cate was impatient.
“Why are you asking me?”
“You’re the one writing a book.” Every syllable slowed down pointedly.
I jumped in: “You know everyone else’s address. We’re trying to figure out if one of the Bellangers is after us now.”
He inhaled at this. “Wow. Like, the follower? One of his sons. Shit. I never—”
“Do you know anything about them?” I asked.
“To be honest…” Tom set the bags down on the bed, then rubbed hard at the back of his neck, not exactly looking at any of us. “They’ve been pretty hard to track down. I know they stayed in Maryland for a while, probably to let the boys finish school. Marianne was savvy about protecting her own family from the press—she’d use fake names, hide from paparazzi. Once the youngest boy graduated, they went their own ways. The money from Bellanger could’ve tided them over for a while. Her last known address was in California—”
“You don’t know where they are,” Cate said, cutting him off. “Long story short.”
“I’m not entirely sure, no.”
“You’re writing a big tell-all about Joseph Bellanger and you’re not talking to his sons or his wife?” Cate demanded.
“Look, I was getting around to it,” Tom said, defensive, crossing his arms.
“Could you maybe get around to it now?”
That subtle redness, rash-like, drifted up Tom’s neck. “Yeah, I’d love to talk to the Bellangers. Of course I would. But I have to be respectful. They didn’t ask to be part of this.”
Irritation shot through me, and I saw it mirrored in Cate’s face.
“Did they not?” Cate asked. “Bless their hearts. Shall we just leave them alone, then, poor dears?” Her voice was tight with sarcasm, exploding into sudden anger. “Why are you even here, then, Thomas? What do you want with us?”
He stuck his hands in his pockets, wouldn’t look at anyone directly. “I thought we were just talking about our next move. I don’t want a fight.”
“Our next move. Who invited you, anyway?”
“Cate,” I said. “Okay. It’s not his fault. Tom’s been in this from the start.”
She bit at one fist, then let go, sighed. “Yeah? Well, maybe if he’d put any effort into finding the Bellangers and talking to them, instead of hunting us down, we wouldn’t be in this situation at all.”
* * *
“Christ, I could use a cigarette.” Tom tipped his head back against the brick wall, staring up at the grayish night sky. Even the sky around this motel was grimier, greasier, the stars dulled. I’d followed him out there, hoping to smooth things over.