True Places(80)

Tinsley laughed, a mocking bray. “Don’t be a fool. You have a marriage, not a support group.” Her tone became even, honed. “Whit is a rare bird: a loyal man. And because he’s also a proud man, he works hard for you and the children. How can you throw that away?”

“I’m not throwing—”

Her mother interrupted, breathless. “Let me tell you something no one else will. You won’t always be beautiful, Suzanne. Men won’t always run after you.”

“That’s not a news flash. And it’s not a problem. I’m not hung up on appearances.”

“You ought to be! Think how this looks. It’s a scandal. You’ve abandoned your family.”

“Mother, you need to stop. This is not your business.”

“Not my business? My granddaughter has been suspended from school for a week. The poor girl!”

“School policy.”

“We’ve asked to speak to the principal. Your father’s on the board, as you know.”

“She should take her punishment and be thankful nothing worse happened. Don’t intervene. Please.”

“Of course we’ll intervene! You may have given up on everyone who loves you, but your father and I continue to support you and your family in every way we possibly can.”

Suzanne took a deep breath. The breadth and depth of her mother’s false assumptions, misplaced energy, and outright lies were staggering. Suzanne stacked the arguments up in her mind, straightened the edges, and prepared to take her mother’s illogic and self-aggrandizing nonsense to pieces. But what would be the point? Tinsley was nothing if not consistent. Suzanne had gotten one thing right over the years: she had not wasted energy in attempting to change her mother.

“Mother, I’m going now.” Suzanne lowered the phone from her ear. Tinsley’s protest was unintelligible.

Suzanne ended the call and turned to watch Iris inside the café. The girl ate fruit with her fingers and gazed out the window at the sky. Suzanne wished she were as detached from other people as Iris plainly was. Suzanne knew she should be sad that the girl had no family and was wary of people, but at the moment Iris’s autonomy seemed like the greatest gift imaginable. To be free of the needs and expectations of others; to enjoy self-determination; to take a course of action—or even a single step—without weighing the impact on those around her. To be selfish.

She wasn’t sure if she knew how to begin, unless she already had.





CHAPTER 35

Brynn was on her sixth episode of Cake Wars and was about to lose her mind. She’d already binge-watched the entire first season of The Crown and started on Orange Is the New Black but couldn’t handle it. Prison was too gross and depressing. Being suspended was too gross and depressing. Her friends hardly even talked to her. Ophelia’s parents had taken her phone away, and the rest of them were “busy with school stuff.” Since when? Brynn was royally pissed at her mother for telling the school that she got caught drinking. Sure, all the kids in sports—and their parents—had to sign a pledge to report alcohol and drug use, but only her mom was lame enough to actually do it. “Integrity,” said the mom who ran away from her family.

Brynn was flipping through old shows, ones not normally on her radar, when her father came home. It was only three o’clock, so clearly he thought she might be spending the afternoon doing shots and starring in her own porn video. It was a thought. At least she’d get some exercise. If she kept vegging out on the couch and snacking all day, she’d be covered in puppy fat before her suspension was over. They wouldn’t even let her swim with the team.

Her father walked in, looking frazzled. “Hey.”

“Hi. Can we go to the Melting Pot for dinner? I’m feeling fondue.”

“Sure. I mean no.” He scraped his hand through his hair. “You’re not supposed to be enjoying yourself.”

She gave him a sweet smile. “If I promise to be miserable, can we?”

He frowned. This wasn’t going well. “Have you heard from your mother?”

“No.” Her mother had been gone almost two whole days and had sent two texts, both saying she was fine. As if Brynn had asked. Her mother wasn’t the one who’d been abandoned. Thank God no one at school knew she’d run away. And she had taken Iris, which should’ve made Brynn happy but didn’t. She’d actually been feeling pretty shitty about getting Iris mixed up in Promgate. If Iris were around, Brynn could’ve told her that.

Her father plunked himself into a chair. “Brynn, I’d really like to know what went on at that party. In fact, I’d like to know exactly how you met Robby and how it all happened.”

He sounded like he’d been thinking carefully about how to put this. It was totally a script. And his face said he hoped she wouldn’t tell him anything too disturbing.

“Don’t worry about it, Daddy.”

“I do worry about it, sweetheart. You know I do.”

Brynn had been fiddling with the remote. She set it aside. “What do you worry about?”

“You.” He bent forward, elbows on his knees. “I worry about you. About what you do, about what might happen to you. And Reid, too, of course.”

His expression was eager, like he was determined for her to see how much he meant what he said. She wondered if he did. Maybe she doubted him because she’d been home alone with too much time for thinking. Did her father really worry about her? Right now, his forehead was scrunched up, and he looked like he’d pulled an all-nighter. He was jiggling his legs up and down, which meant he was nervous. Maybe he was just upset about what had happened. What dad wouldn’t feel that way about his darling daughter passed out on a lawn and getting hauled home by the police? That shitshow was history, though. Too late to worry about that. Worry was for the future, for the stuff you could maybe do something about.