The Bad Daughter(33)
“That’s such good news, sweetheart,” she said to the pale young girl sitting up in bed. “How are you feeling?”
“A little better.” Cassidy dropped an issue of Star magazine to the bed, watching helplessly as it slid off the stiff white sheets to the floor. “Oh,” she said, looking as if she was about to burst into tears.
Robin quickly scooped up the magazine. “My goodness,” she said, perusing its headlines. “It seems that Jennifer Aniston is pregnant with triplets. Again. That must make at least fifty children she’s had in the last five years.”
Cassidy smiled, the effort causing her to wince in pain. “She’s a real little firecracker, all right. That’s what Daddy would say.”
Yes, he would, Robin thought, smoothing some hair away from the girl’s delicate face, then gently kissing her forehead. “Did the nurses bring you these?” She noted that in addition to Star, there were also current issues of People, Us, and Vogue on the nightstand beside her bed.
“No. Kenny did.”
“Kenny Stapleton?”
Cassidy nodded. “It’s too hard to read them. I’m just looking at the pictures.”
“When was Kenny here?”
“This morning. I said it was okay. Was that all right? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, sweetheart. Not if you felt safe with him.”
“With Kenny? Why wouldn’t I?”
Robin hesitated.
“He’s not the man who shot me,” Cassidy said. The force with which she said it elicited another grimace of pain.
“How can you be sure?” Robin asked.
“Because he doesn’t look anything like the men who were in the house that night.”
“You didn’t see their faces,” Robin reminded her.
“I didn’t have to see their faces to know it wasn’t Kenny,” Cassidy replied. “Kenny’s tall and skinny. The men who shot us were way bigger, way more muscular. Like they worked out a lot.”
Like Dylan Campbell, Robin thought, pulling up a chair and sitting down. Another unwelcome thought intruded. Like Landon. She quickly brushed that thought aside. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Cassidy attempted another smile, her lips quivering with the effort. “I like that you worry about me. Mommy was right about you.”
Robin felt a pang of guilt pierce her heart. She’d cut Tara off without so much as a word of goodbye, and while Tara had tried reestablishing contact from time to time—seeking her out on Facebook and regularly sending her cards on her birthday—Robin had ignored or rebuffed every attempt. “You know that your mother and I had a falling-out.”
“I know,” Cassidy acknowledged. “She said you were mad at her for marrying Daddy.”
“I was.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Because of Alec?”
“Partly that.”
“How come Melanie wasn’t angry?” Cassidy asked.
Beats the shit out of me, Robin thought. Melanie was always angry about something.
“She was always nice to us.”
“I’m glad.”
“She said that the important thing was for Daddy to be happy, and if Mommy made him happy, then she was happy, too,” she recited, as if from memory.
Robin paused, carefully considering her next remark. “So why do you think your mommy didn’t trust her?”
Cassidy shrugged.
They sat in silence for several seconds.
“Tell me about my mother,” Cassidy urged.
“What do you want to know?”
“Like, what she was like when she was my age. If she had any boyfriends. If she was, you know, popular.”
“Your mother had more friends than anyone I’ve ever met. Girls and boys. The boys wanted to be around her; the girls wanted to be her.”
“So she was, like, really popular.”
“She was, like, really popular,” Robin agreed.
“I’ve never been popular,” Cassidy said softly.
“No? Me neither.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that?”
“It’s the truth. I was always shy and a little on the quiet side.”
“It’s kind of funny,” Cassidy said.
“What is?”
“That Mommy had so many friends in school.”
“How so?”
“?’Cause she really didn’t have any now.”
“She didn’t?”
“Maybe Melanie, but they weren’t exactly…Oh, there was Tom.”
“Tom?”
“This guy she went to school with.”
Robin searched her memory for someone in any of their classes named Tom. She couldn’t think of anyone. “Tom who?”
“I don’t remember. He lives in San Francisco now. We visited him a few times when we went to see the decorator.”
A frisson of anxiety wriggled through Robin’s chest. Alec lives in San Francisco, she thought, then banished the unwelcome thought from her mind.
“Can I ask you something?” Robin said.
“Sure.”
“Was your mother happy?”