Confessions on the 7:45(85)

“Her car,” said Pearl. “It must be nearby. We have to find it.”

She looked up at Gracie, who was staring at her, eyes wide.

“And,” she went on, “we have to get rid of the bodies.”

“Bodies,” Gracie echoed. She got a little glassy, slipping away again.

“Gracie,” said Pearl, her voice sharp. The sound of her name seemed to wake the girl up. She stood a little taller, looking at Pearl as if awaiting instruction. Pearl went on.

“I’m going to need you to plug in and help me handle this. Pop wouldn’t want us to curl up and die here. He’d want us to work together.”

Something passed between them, a knowing. Pearl had no idea what Pop had done to Gracie, or how he came to take her and why. But he was right, they were sisters. Sisters of circumstance, bound now by this ugly moment in time, by Pop and whatever he had been to each of them, for each of them.

Gracie looked down at the bodies, and then back to Pearl. This was the moment. Was she going to pass out? Collapse? Start screaming? Run? This was the moment when Gracie would decide who she was. For Pearl, the moment had been in Pecos, years earlier when she became Anne. She chose Pop; she chose the life, even if she didn’t understand then what the consequences would be later. Because of all the things Pearl was, most of all she was a survivor. She chose the path that kept her fighting another day.

But what about Gracie, this mousy little girl that Pop had chosen to be her sister. At her core, what was she?

Seconds ticked by and Gracie looked around. The confusion dropped from her face and her jaw seemed to settle, eyes clear. In the moment, Pearl saw in Gracie what Pop must have seen. She was one of them.

“Okay,” Gracie said. She looked square at Pearl. “What do we need to do?”



THIRTY-FIVE

Cora

“Why didn’t you ever tell us about this, Mom?” asked Selena. Her eyes were dark with recrimination. “Don’t you think we had a right to know?”

Cora felt a lash of anger. Selena just wasn’t getting it. Her younger daughter was angry at Cora for a hundred things, had been since her teens. Cora was too strict, didn’t understand the “modern” world, worried too much about nothing. They were at loggerheads from age thirteen until she left for college. On the other hand, Selena had worshipped her father; his fall from grace was brutal for Selena. Marisol was always a momma’s girl, tender and attached. Even now, they were closer than Cora was with Selena. Not that she loved her younger any less. It was just a chemistry thing.

“No,” said Cora, sharper than she intended. “I didn’t think you had a right to know. It was your father’s responsibility to tell you what he’d done. If you’re going to recriminate anyone, let it be him.”

Selena drew in and released a rush of breath. The look on her face—bewilderment, disappointment—put a squeeze on Cora’s heart.

“Mom,” she said. Selena put a hand to her forehead. “This woman—Pearl. She approached me on the train. I don’t know why, but I told her—things about my life.”

“What things?”

“About Graham. And since then—she’s been texting me. Now Geneva is missing.”

“Oh,” said Cora, feeling the weight of it. What was the girl capable of? She’d done so much damage already.

A few weeks after she saw the girl, Cora noticed a large sum of money disappear from one of the accounts Doug thought he had hidden from her. But Cora, for all her many failings, wasn’t one of those women who didn’t pay attention to money. Doug wanted to control everything, but she always had access to accounts. She made sure of it, snooping if she had to for account numbers and passwords. She kept records; she was biding her time, hoping to launch the girls, at least to college, before she left.

On a night when Selena was off sleeping over at a girlfriend’s house, Cora confronted Doug—about the money, about the strange, hovering girl. Cora had expected the usual denials, accusations of instability, a furious exit—that was the usual way of things. This time, though, she’d already called a lawyer. She was done.

But he didn’t deny. Instead he started weeping. All his little secrets and lies, they all came out. Pearl. Another family, a woman and two children in Atlanta. A third girlfriend. It was a sickness, he said. He was seeking help.

Could she forgive him?

No. She could not. Not again. Not anymore.

Dominoes. Tip one and they all fall down. That was what happened to their life when Pearl entered. Doug’s daughter from one of his many affairs. Selena and Marisol’s half sister. She didn’t just want money. She wanted revenge. She ruined Doug—it all came out.

Now, Cora told Selena everything that she had tried to hide. All of it.

And when she was done, they sat in silence. There was only the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer, Selena’s breath.

“I’m sorry,” Cora said when Selena said nothing, her eyes glassy, foot bouncing. “I’m sorry I kept so many secrets from you. I thought it was for the best.”

Her words sounded weak, watery on the air.

“So,” said Selena. “Has she been watching us—watching me—all these years?”

The thought made Cora go cold. Had she?

Cora had let that part of her life fall away. In her new world, the one she built with Paulo, she’d let the past retreat into memory. Doug—his affairs, his nasty controlling ways—they faded into the distance. She rarely thought about him—or about Pearl, the lost girl who wanted to hurt her father and did.