Anything for Her(56)

“So what happened?”

“You didn’t get any skinnier, so I decided you were simply made to be slight. But after you discovered quilting, you started looking healthier.”

Until they’d moved again. Allie did remember that miserable year, until she graduated from high school. She’d become gaunt. One of her primary emotions leaving for college and dorm life had been relief at escaping her mother’s fussing.

“So what is it this time?” Mom asked. “Does it have to do with the man you’re seeing?”

“Nolan.”

“Nolan,” she said impatiently. “Or is it all those questions you had the day we went shopping?”

“I suppose...a little of everything.”

“I don’t understand any of this. Why on earth are you wanting to dwell on something that happened so long ago?”

How could she say to her mother, Because I feel like I’m falling apart? Because I am not a whole person?

No, her mother of all people would never understand. And yet, she was the only person Allie could talk to.

No, the only person she was allowed to talk to. Not quite the same thing.

An insidious thought crept into her mind. Who was telling her she was allowed or not allowed? Once upon a time, it had been the U.S. Marshals Service along with her parents. Now, it was only Mom and the inner, scared voice that said never, never, never.

But I’m all grown up now. Can’t I decide what I can say, and who I can say it to?

She could still put her mother in danger. If, after fifteen years, anyone was still looking for her. Or cared. Or even remembered the secretary who’d heard something she wasn’t supposed to and who had gone into hiding and then testified at the trial, sending a mob assassin to prison.

Fifteen years ago.

I’ll have to think about this, she decided, half-afraid of the strange feeling swelling inside her that might have been liberation, or maybe courage of a completely different kind than her mother’s.

“I think I might be falling in love,” Allie said in a rush. “Doesn’t that always set you to asking yourself questions?”

“Allie, you can’t tell him anything.” Alarm had quickened on her mother’s face. “Don’t you remember what we were taught? This is who we are. If he doesn’t love who you are now, he’s not worth having.”

Part of Allie conceded that was true.

“What if we ever go to one of those places I’m supposed to have lived and he wants to see the house I grew up in? Or my high school, or...?”

“You find reasons not to go,” Mom said fiercely. “If you absolutely have to for some reason, you pick out a house and say, that was the one.”

“And what if he insists on knocking on the door and the people say, ‘What are you talking about? We inherited this house from my grandparents. You can’t have lived here.’”

“Then you apologize and tell them all you must have been confused, and my goodness the town has changed so much you’re all turned around.”

“Lie,” she said flatly.

“Allie, the chances of any of that happening are so remote, I don’t even know why we’re talking about it. We’ve lived in this area for almost eleven years now. You can show this Nolan where you graduated from high school and where we lived before we moved to West Fork.”

“Sooner or later, he’ll ask where Dad lives. And Jason.”

“Montana. Or maybe either or both of them have moved. You don’t know. You don’t want to see them. That’s what you tell him.”

“I do!” She jumped to her feet, shocked to feel tears running down her cheeks. “I do want to see them! I miss Daddy, I miss Jason, and I will not lie about that!”

She could see that her mother’s mouth had fallen open in bewilderment and what might have been fear.

Allie swiped angrily at her tears. “I’m sorry—I’m overreacting. I know I am, but I’m not very good company right now. I think I’d like to be alone.”

“Allie...” Mom sounded as if she had a lump in her throat. “I didn’t know....”

“Please, Mom. Not right now.”

“You won’t do anything foolish?”

If she had let herself laugh, it would have been an awful sound. “Kill myself? Or do you mean tell Nolan who I really am?”

Her mother’s eyes got even wider. “I never thought—”