Girl One(91)

Whether the woman is lying out of malice or simple confusion, I’m not sure, but I couldn’t help but think of alternatives. What if this tenth pregnancy was not a virgin birth at all, but rather a traditional pregnancy, caused by some nocturnal visitor? I can understand why the shame of such a liaison would lead the pregnant woman to lie about her condition and the reasoning behind it. History has been scattered with so many women who lie about “virgin birth” in order to save their honor and reputations, or perhaps through simple ignorance of biology, that my father had to work uphill against these rumors when his own experiments took place. Ironic, then, that his detractor could be using the very same lies to attack my father’s legacy.





41

“I can explain.”

“I don’t think you can.” Cate sounded bitterly exhausted, as if all the other times she’d quieted her doubts had led to this. “There’s no excuse for this … this book you’ve been scribbling away in secret all this time. Let’s take a look at some choice excerpts, shall we?”

Junior ran his hands through his hair. A familiar gesture, but one that belonged to somebody else, to Tom, and I had a sensation as if Junior had stolen it from a friend of mine. He was frantic and resigned at the same time. We’d retreated into Cate and Isabelle’s room.

“I was just brainstorming that chapter,” Junior said, voice strained. “I wasn’t going to necessarily leave it in. I realize that it’s not fair. I never knew Lily-Anne. Or Barbara. I shouldn’t have accused them of lying.” He clasped his hands between his knees.

Only Isabelle was calm, sitting on the bed and switching languidly through channels like a kid ignoring her parents’ fight, Delilah’s stolen diary opened up on her lap.

Cate flipped through the pages, pausing. “Okay.” Her tone turned arch: “‘Like her mother, Josephine Morrow is beautiful. Long brown hair, even longer legs, high cheekbones, and eyes that seem to be evaluating you at every turn. She is driven to a fault, though her cool demeanor cracks a little when you get to know her. Making her laugh,’” Cate read, shaking her head, “‘feels like a triumph.’” She lifted her gaze from the page, eyebrow raised.

I turned to Junior, my cheeks and neck hot with chagrin, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Hearing myself rendered in third person was jarring, like I was being lifted outside of my own body and flattened and smoothed into a paper doll. “I asked you to stop writing this,” I said. “But you never were going to stop. You didn’t care.”

“This story is important to me,” Junior said.

“The question is, Junior, are you the one to tell it?” Cate asked. “Because personally, I think our story has been told by the wrong people all along. You don’t see anything wrong with having a front-row seat to all our most private tragedies. We’re just inventions to you.”

“Like light bulbs,” I said softly. “Like telephones.”

“And who wants to be a light bulb?” Cate asked.

“Just see it from my perspective.” Junior’s voice hardened, an abrupt energy in his posture. He straightened. “You Girls are the reason that my family was so broken. Don’t I deserve a chance to be part of the story? I lost my father as a kid. My mother was never the same after he died. I wanted to at least see that his work was worthwhile. And you, Josie. All of a sudden, you’re all over the news, talking about how you’re going to finish his work. Just hijack his legacy.”

“Hijack?” I said, stung. “I devoted my life to restoring his work and making him proud. That was always my intention. How can you fucking say that?”

“But imagine how it felt for me,” Junior said. “Watching somebody else take over my father’s work like that. I wanted to be part of it too. I wanted to have a say in his story.”

Cate waved one of the pages. “Reading this, I’m just seeing a lot of the same shit that’s already been published a thousand times. So he’s your father—so what?”

Junior watched her, different expressions flickering across his face: defensiveness, shame, anger. For a second, an almost heartbreaking optimism, like he might still fix this.

“You want a new take?” Cate asked. “A fresh take? Then think about this, Junior.” She stepped closer to him. “When your father started out, he was trying and failing to achieve the impossible. He would have tried and failed for decades if Morrow’s mother hadn’t reached out to him. Our mothers were the ones who did your father a favor. We’re our mothers’ creations every bit as much as we’re his. Now that we know about Lily-Anne, I’m not sure what your father had to do with anything.”

The flashing TV screen jangled at my nerves. The truth of what Cate had said seeped in a little deeper. I was my mother’s daughter and only my mother’s daughter. I was her brainchild, not just her flesh-and-blood daughter. She was my brainmother.

“Look, I’m sympathetic to the Girls of the Homestead,” Junior said, struggling to stay calm. “I am. I’ve found out a lot of things about my father that I don’t understand or like. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. It’s hard to accept that your father might’ve been a—a—”

“Villain? Liar? Thief?” Cate supplied helpfully.