The Silent Sister(100)

“Daddy died about a month ago,” she said. “I didn’t know if you knew.”

“I did,” she said. “I sent him a postcard about our tour and when I didn’t hear from him, I got worried. I found the obituary online.” She’d cried for days. She owed him so much. He’d taken enormous risks to give her a life of freedom, and although he resolutely never spoke to her about Riley, he’d been her only link to her daughter. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Were you really close to him? I know so little about you. He never let me know anything about—”

“What do you want?” Celia interrupted, her gaze riveted on Riley. She still stood near the door, and she sounded icy cold, the way she did when she was scared. “You two are chatting like you don’t have a care in the world.”

“Shh, it’s all right, Celia,” Jade said, then looked back at her daughter. “I’ve wanted to see you—to be with you—your whole life,” she said. “I hope you understand—”

“Celia’s right,” Riley interrupted her. “Everything’s not all right. I came here to warn you.” Her knuckles were white on the violin case. “Danny knows everything,” she said. “He blames you for so much. It’s irrational, but that doesn’t matter. He has a good friend who’s a cop, and he plans to tell him who you are. I think the police will be waiting for you at the concert in New Bern.”

There wasn’t a sound in the room. Jade’s blood turned to ice in her veins and her heart thumped hard in her ears. Standing out of her sight, Celia was so still Jade wouldn’t have known she was there.

“I feel like it’s my fault,” Riley said. “I told Danny I thought you might be alive before I realized … everything, and once I did, I tried to keep him from discovering what I’d found out, but—”

“You told him?” Celia accused. “What, exactly? What did you tell him?”

“Celia,” Jade chided, but her whole body trembled. “Please.”

The door suddenly opened and Shane stood in the hallway, Travis a step behind him.

“Did you talk to the kids yet?” Shane asked. “We’re starving.”

Jade looked at Celia. “You go. I need to talk to Riley.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Celia said.

Travis looked from Riley to Jade and back again. He and Shane had to feel the tension in the air of the room. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Who are you?” Shane asked Riley.

“She’s a friend.” Jade stood up, her hands trembling as she picked up Celia’s mandolin case and backpack and pressed them into her arms. “You all go eat. I’ll get a cab to the hotel later.”

“No.” Celia shook her head. “I’m staying.”

Jade gave her a pleading look. She knew Celia was as terrified as she was. She wanted to tell her she understood, but there was no time. She needed to talk to her daughter. Now. Alone.

“Please, Celia,” she said.

Celia took a step toward the door, but stopped to look back at Riley. “I don’t know what you’ve heard,” she said, “but Jade’s a good, good person.” Jade saw those rare tears in Celia’s eyes again as she left the dressing room. She probably felt as Jade did, that their whole life together had been heading toward this moment. Heading for an inevitable catastrophe.

She closed the door behind Celia and the men, then turned to face Riley. “Should we go someplace?” she asked. “I don’t know how long we’ll be allowed to stay here.”

Riley shook her head. “I don’t want to talk in public,” she said. “Let’s stay here until they throw us out.”





53.

Riley

“You’re so beautiful,” Lisa said.

Seeing her in front of me, seeing her humanness and feeling the love in her touch, made me feel incredibly guilty. “I’m afraid I’m ruining everything for you,” I said.

“Let’s not talk about that right now,” she said firmly. “Right now, right this minute, I’m not in prison. I’m here with you, and I want to know everything there is to know about you.” She sat forward in the chair. “I search for you on the Internet constantly, but it’s like you don’t exist,” she said. “I check Facebook at least once a month. There are a bunch of Riley MacPhersons, but I can tell none of them are you. One of them has a nature picture as her profile instead of a picture of herself, though, and I always wonder, ‘Is that her?’”

For the first time all day, I smiled. I felt a thrill, knowing that she’d searched for me. She’d guessed right: I was the Riley MacPherson with the photograph of a field of poppies as my cover picture and a spectacular rainbow as my profile shot. “That’s me,” I said. “I have to keep a low profile on social media. I’m a school counselor and the less the students I work with know about my personal life, the better.”

“A counselor!” she said. “Oh, Riley, that’s wonderful.”

I thought of telling her that she became the inspiration for my career choice the day she took her own life, but I didn’t want to talk about her deceit. I didn’t want to talk about the choice she made to leave me.