The Stillwater Girls(60)

“You mean how I dealt with it.”

He says nothing at first. Reluctant to answer or maybe frozen in thought. Then, “Yeah.”

“So whoever it is . . . it has to be someone we know?” I ask.

Brant lifts a shoulder. “It could be anyone around here. Everyone in Stillwater knows us, knows what happened, knows that you . . . forgot,” he says. “I thought I could handle this all on my own and I’d deal with everything else once we had her in our arms again. Everything else seemed so trivial at the time. All I could think about was getting her back.”

The photo of the little girl rests between my fingers. I flip it around, studying her angelic face and those haunting, sea-green irises.

“Nic, those pictures that Wren drew,” he says, “there was one that looked just like her. Wren said it was her sister. I think there’s a chance Evie might be our Hannah.” Brant rises, dragging his palm along his smooth jaw as he moves toward one of the windows that overlooks the forest. “Maybe that lady who took her was the same one raising these girls off the grid?”

A raw emptiness burns and swells inside me. I never knew I could miss something this hard, could suffer a void so real and deep.

All this time, I had a daughter.

And I gave her away.





CHAPTER 41

WREN

It’s late in the afternoon when we arrive at a funeral parlor that smells like old flowers. Slow, soft music fills my ears, though I have no idea where it’s coming from.

“Hello.” A silver-haired woman in pearls and a navy pantsuit greets us. “You must be here for Maggie Sharp.”

“We are,” Nicolette says, speaking for us.

It still doesn’t feel right to hear Mama’s name. To me, Maggie Sharp is a stranger. And maybe in some ways, so is Mama.

“Right this way.” The woman leads us through a couple of doorways toward a simple brown casket covered in white roses. “The community was so touched by your story that they pooled together enough money for you to have this private visitation with your mother. Resting Lawns Cemetery has donated a plot. McCarthy Monument has offered to contribute the headstone of your choosing—whenever you’re ready. A person need not have a funeral to be laid to rest.”

“Thank you,” Nicolette says, speaking for us again.

“I’ll be in the office if you need me,” she says, voice soft like clouds.

Sage steps toward the casket. “I want to see her.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart,” Nicolette says. “She won’t look the way you remember her.”

Neither of us has seen a dead body before.

I don’t know that I ever want to.

Sage throws her arms over the top of the casket before burying her face into the bend of her elbow. I grab her a tissue from a nearby box.

Part of me wishes I could cry.

This woman fed me, clothed me, loved me, kept me safe my entire life.

Taught me everything I know.

Made me everything that I am.

I should be devastated in this moment . . . not staring at a polished brown box covered in white roses, wondering how much longer we’ll be here.

Maybe it’ll come later, when my skin stops burning every time I think of a question I’ll never be able to ask her, when my fists stop clenching when I think about her promise to protect us, to never let anything happen to us . . . and yet Evie is missing.

I grabbed a slip of paper from a rack in the front of the parlor on our way in. According to this, there are different stages of grief—seven total. And as I read through them, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible to experience all of them at once.

Or none of them at all.

My heart aches for one more day together: the four of us. The way it was before. Picking lilacs. Singing songs. Feeding the livestock. Playing Old Maid by the fire at night before bed. Mama braiding our hair. Evie’s giggles.

But it’ll never happen.

And it’s all Mama’s fault.

“I’ll be waiting in the car,” Nicolette says. “Take as much time as you need.”



Sage sleeps the whole drive home with her head on my shoulder, and I stare out the window, thinking about Evie. Where she is. Who she’s with. If she’s smiling, or if she’s scared. If she’s missing us . . .

After a while, it hurts too much to think about, so my mind wanders to the blonde woman. If Mama wasn’t my biological mother, maybe she was? I wish I knew if she was looking for me, if she missed me. I try to imagine a mother and a father and a warm house, cousins and aunts and uncles, the kinds of things that everyone else around here seems to have.

And then I try to imagine Sage’s family, my chest tightening when I think about how weird it is that we come from two different families. Two sets of parents. Two sets of aunts and uncles and cousins. Are they looking for her, too?

By the time we pull into the Gideons’ garage, Sage stirs awake, glancing around like she just emerged from a heavy dream and has no idea where she is.

“Are you girls hungry?” Nic asks as we climb out and head inside.

“No, thank you,” I say, inhaling the distinct scent of the Gideon home. I don’t think I could describe it any other way than pleasant. Every once in a while, I can catch a single note—sometimes lemon, sometimes cinnamon; other times the scent of her laundry room fills the halls, and I stop for a moment, wondering if I’ll remember the way this house smelled long after I’ve gone from here.