The Girl in the Mirror(41)

“Could you hear me when I called you on the sat phone?” Adam asks, pressing his cheek against mine, so close that I can’t see his face. “Was that before or after you lost Iris?”

My brain is spinning around inside my skull. What am I supposed to say? How can he not know whether or not Iris had fallen overboard when he phoned me? Is this a trick question?

Hold on. There’s a gift in his words. A great big escape clause.

“No,” I say slowly. “No, I couldn’t hear you when you called me on the sat phone.” I wrap my arms around his head, keeping his cheek pressed against mine. There’s a hint of stubble, a little roughness in his smooth skin. “Couldn’t you hear me either?”

“Nothing,” says Adam. “Just a whooshing sound. Then the phone went dead. I tried to call back, but I couldn’t get through.”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s right. The phone went dead. Then I went to bed, and I—she—she said she would keep the phone with her in case you rang back. Afterwards, I couldn’t find it. She must have been holding it when . . . when . . .”

“Don’t think about it now,” Adam says, rocking back on his heels and taking my hands. “It’s too much for you.”

I let a tear leak down my cheek. I’ve explained away the call and the disappearance of the phone. It ties up beautifully.

I might as well push on and find out more. “It’s all so confusing,” I say. “Why were you phoning? I thought the sat phone was only for emergencies.”

“I know,” Adam says, “but I wanted to tell you the good news that we would be waiting for you here. And I couldn’t last one more day without hearing my wife’s beautiful voice.”

I remember Summer’s blissful excitement, her impulsive leap onto the aft deck. Her desperation to hear her husband. So it was Adam’s love, Adam’s need for Summer, that struck the fatal blow.

I shove more pineapple in my mouth. I’ve finessed my way through a tough conversation, but what about the disc? The disc doesn’t fit with the story I’ve just told.

I didn’t chuck the disc overboard with my emerald ring and my notes in case I had to show it to the police. Without Adam, I thought the police might doubt my story. The footage was evidence that my sister did fall overboard, that it was an accident.

But Adam’s presence changes things. My little insurance policy has become a problem. Perhaps I could have explained away the crew cap, even though Adam might wonder why Iris was wearing it. But I can’t explain the fact that the girl who is on the sat phone goes overboard, now that I’ve claimed that I took the call myself.

Dammit, if only I had known that he couldn’t hear anything, I could have claimed that Iris took the call, and then I could have shown him the footage. Too late now. The disc could ruin everything. It has to go.

Adam’s phone rings. “Hi, Adam here.” His voice is strained, metallic. “I’m afraid you need to prepare yourself . . .” He walks out of the room, but through the open door I hear a wailing, long and keening. The woman screaming through the phone is my mother.

I feel like my blood is draining out of me. My mother! Why didn’t I foresee that she might phone Adam?

I have mucked everything up. I should jump off this chaise longue and run after Adam, who’s hightailing it down a hallway to save me from the clamor. I’ll shout to my mother that it’s not true. She’s not dead.

But I stay where I am. It is true. Annabeth has lost a daughter. If it matters to her which one, if mothers do have favorites even when they pretend not to, then I’m doing her a favor.

I was only going to pull this prank for a few days to get out of the Seychelles, but how can I undo it now? Annabeth was never meant to hear this news.

Adam comes back into the room with a harrowed expression.

“I’m sorry you had to tell her,” I say. “I should have phoned Mum sooner. I’ll phone my brother myself.”

“No,” he says, “your mum’s phoning him. She said she wanted to.”

I think of my brother’s voice, the steady ordinariness of it. I want him here. I need him. Ben is my only sibling now. Francine’s girls, raised to hate us, don’t count. Ben will be here in a few days. He’ll come as soon as he can, I know he will. I have to hold out till then.

Ben won’t recognize me, not the way I look at the moment. Or if he does, will it matter to him? What’s one sister over another? He’s quiet, timid. He won’t speak up.



In the early evening, I ask Adam to take me back to Bathsheba, but he resists.

“My grandparents have given us this suite for as long as we like,” he says. “I thought you would never want to see that boat again.”

I have to give a reason. I can’t say that I don’t like being surrounded by his family. I can’t say I miss being at sea.

“It’s the last place I was with my sister,” I say, “the last place she was alive.”

Adam looks doubtful, but I keep asking, and at last he agrees to drive me back. Tarquin will spend the night with relatives. Daniel lends us his car.

In the car, I’m alone with Adam for the first time. Daniel’s driver is apparently busy elsewhere. Now is the time to come clean. Honey, I lost the baby. It would be so easy to say, but what next? Let’s conceive another baby right away. But this baby was an accident, and my body has been through an ordeal. What if he wants to wait?