The Watcher Girl(4)

It’s the truth.

“Sure you don’t want something to eat?” Bliss motions toward her half-burned eggs.

“You know, it’s a gorgeous morning already. Why don’t we take this outside? The three of us?” my father interjects before I have a chance to decline Bliss’s invite again. “Surely you’ve got a few minutes to spare? Haven’t seen you in years, Gracie . . .”

He’s using my nickname to mollify my resistance. Only I don’t feel soft—I’m entrapped by the guilt wafting off him and the way his expensive aftershave makes me think of different times. Not happier times. Different. I don’t know that we were ever truly happy. Happy-ish? In an ignorant, unaware sort of way?

I pour my coffee and leave it black. “All right. I’ve got a few minutes.”

He exhales, shoulders relaxing, and then he bustles about the kitchen with new life in his step as Bliss plates their food. My father pours two coffees, one for him and one for her, and we head out back like none of this is awkward.

The weather gauge by the pool house reads seventy-eight degrees, and the breeze is just light enough to tousle a few loose waves around Bliss’s face.

She smiles and chews, smiles and chews.

Always smiling, this one.

Maybe it goes with the territory when your name is Bliss.

If I weren’t crashing here, about to ask for favors, I’d ask her what her name used to be—before it was “Bliss Diamond.”

The internet has no record of her until eighteen years ago.

But I keep my mouth shut.

I’m not here for her. Or for my father.

I’m here because of Sutton.

One sip of my coffee tells me it’s expensive, but not the good kind of expensive—the kind where you’re paying for the brand and the marketing. The bitterness lingers on my tongue after the first drink, making me long for the Turkish coffee place down the street from my apartment in Portland. The powder-soft grounds. The cinnamon and cardamom. The electric jolt of caffeine that wastes zero time hitting my bloodstream.

Soon, I remind myself, I’ll be back there again.

This is temporary.

My father devours his eggs with his stick-straight posture, occasionally reaching over to pat the top of his girlfriend’s hand.

I don’t remember him being this affectionate with my mother. Then again, I’m sure there are a lot of things I don’t remember. They say a child’s memory can be grossly inaccurate and distorted. Some things I recall as though I’m viewing them through ripples of murky water. Other things I recall with terrifying clarity.

“So . . . Grace . . . what’ve you been up to these last couple of years? Rose said you were in Vegas? Phoenix? Colorado Springs? And then Billings for a bit?” My father pushes his eggs around on his plate, picking out bits of black. “Where’s home these days?”

Rose has always been the information hub of this family, so it doesn’t surprise me that he knows these things. It does, however, surprise me that he’s been keeping tabs. I figured he’d have more important things to do.

“Portland. But not for much longer. I don’t like to stay in one place for too long,” I say.

“Where to next?” He brings his fork to his lips, pausing as if he has to will himself to take a bite.

Poor Bliss.

I shrug. “Was thinking Charleston, maybe? Or Charlotte. Kind of want to experience a different coast this time.”

“Now that’ll be quite a change of scenery,” he says with the misplaced confidence of a man who was raised in New York and has spent his entire adult life in New Jersey.

I try not to judge him for never stepping out of his bubble because I know that deep down—beneath the McMullen family money, beyond the debonair features that have aged well, past the flashy car and the merry-go-round of stunning girlfriends and the country club social circle—he’s afraid. Though of what, I’m not sure. All I know is that we all have our fears, and oftentimes those fears dictate exactly how we live our lives—whether we realize it or not.

My biggest fear was becoming my mother—a woman so desperate to hang on to her sham of a life, her carefully crafted illusion of happiness, that she was willing to kill for it. Or in her case—hire someone to do the killing for her. God forbid she got her manicure dirty. But in the end, fear got the best of her. It commandeered her decisions and drove her to do the unthinkable.

If I’d stayed with Sutton, he’d have given me a perfect life. That much I know. And he’d have loved me more than a person deserves to be loved. With each passing year, I’d have clung to him—to our beautiful marriage and family—like lifeblood. And if anything so much as threatened to step in our path, I’d have snapped. Like my mother.

Maybe it’s not in my blood, per se. But it’s there. A learned unsteadiness simmering in my veins.

It’s in all of us.

Some people simply control it better than others.

“Charleston is breathtaking. So charming. You’ll adore it.” Bliss’s eyes light, and she splays a hand across her chest. “Oh, to be young and untethered again.” She points her fork at no one in particular. “I remember those days. Cherish them. Once you settle down and have kids, you have to bloom where you plant them.”

My father chuckles like he gets it, and I recall that in my quest to unearth the dirt on Bliss Diamond, I came across her website bio, which described her as a California-native-turned-entrepreneur living in New Jersey. No mention of kids.