Some Quiet Place (Some Quiet Place #1)(26)

I wait until he’s gone—I can hear him moving around above us, a water faucet turning, the bedsprings squeaking—and then sit down at the kitchen table. Mom doesn’t notice me at first. She sighs in her isolation, shoulders slumped. I notice the grooves in her soap-covered hands, the natural downturn of her mouth. I shift, making the chair creak deliberately. Mom gasps, whirling around. When she sees it’s just me, her expression tightens.

“Elizabeth,” she mutters unhappily. The name sounds reluctant on her tongue. “Did you want something?”

“I’d like some answers,” I say, and it occurs to me how much I sound like Fear. “I won’t take long.”

She turns her back to me, resuming the dishes. “What is it?”

I fold my hands on the surface of the table and decide to be direct. “Will you tell me about the car accident?”

She stiffens, facing me again. Her gaze is sharp. “Who told you about that?”

I smile wryly, acting real for her benefit. “People talk, Mom.”

Her face twists up. She’s so many things. Disgusted, sorrowful, wistful, angry. Suddenly we’re not alone—my gaze flicks briefly to Resentment, where he stands among the others. He winks at me. “ … call me that,” Mom is saying. “A mother knows. You’re not my child. I may not know how or why, but you’re not her. My baby laughed. My baby threw tantrums when I wouldn’t let her wear a princess dress all day, every day.” Mom’s fists clench in front of her, and there’s a desperate darkness in her voice. “The doctor said you were catatonic because of the shock, but I knew. I knew.”

Guilt also appears beside Mom, rubbing her shoulders. Even though Guilt is a big, lumbering Emotion, there’s something slimy and sly about her. She fills the room with her aura.

“Hello, odd one,” she greets me. I don’t take my eyes off my mom.

“She’s too good to talk to the likes of you,” Resentment tells her, smirking. The other Emotions have gone.

Mom is silently crying. Despite the evidence and the impossibility of it, she wants to believe her real daughter is out there somewhere, waiting to be found. She wants to believe that her child isn’t the cold person beside her. I need to fix this. I have to fix this. “It’s not your fault,” I say to her as I ignore the two guests sharing the space in the kitchen. “Whatever you think happened. The accident—”

“The accident.” Mom sniffs. She shakes her head, wiping away some sweat on her forehead with the back of her arm. Is the incident with Tim what’s rattled her? Or is it this conversation, here, now? “That’s when it all started. You never found out about it because we never talked about it. For Tim it was a matter of pride. He didn’t want to think about our four-year-old daughter wandering all the way out to the road without our knowing and getting hit by a car.”

“How long was I in the hospital?” I ask next.

Trying to regain her composure, my mom starts on the dishes yet again. Resentment leaves but Guilt remains. “Just a day,” Mom replies. “The doctor said it was a miracle. You got away with just a few scrapes and bruises. They only kept you overnight for observation.” She laughs softly, her shoulders shaking. “Since the driver that hit you was the one to call 9-1-1, Tim and I got to the hospital later. As soon as I walked into your room and you turned … that was the moment I realized you’d changed. You looked at me like you didn’t even know me.”

I stand, moving to the counter to help her dry. She doesn’t object. “It really could just have been shock.”

Mom shakes her head so adamantly that some of her hair comes loose from her ponytail. She’s going to cling to her delusions. “No. No. I rocked my daughter to sleep every night, I sang her songs, I dressed her, I fed her, I played with her, I carried her inside of me for nine months. She knew me, and I knew her.” She scrubs a dish so hard that she slips a bit and dishwater splashes over the edge of the sink. I think, not for the first time, of how different we are, yet it’s her I look like the most. Both of us tall, slender, blond and blue-eyed.

“I should have done more,” Mom murmurs, pulling me back to the present. “Said more. I should have fought for my daughter, tooth and nail, looked for her until my last breath. But I stood here in this kitchen, doing dishes, pretending that everything was all right.”

I should have expected this; it’s the way of humanity, after all, to deny. To hope when there is none. I study the shine of a glass in my hand as I ask, “What do you think happened, then?”

Mom just shakes her head. Really, she has no idea what she believes.

People are so complex. They want to hear the truth, but they want you to lie to them. I choose silence rather than making another mistake with my mother. I dry each dish meticulously, concentrating on the plates and silverware and pans as if they’re the reason for my existence. I become aware that Mom has stopped washing and is watching my hands, her eyes wondering, worrying.

“You can ask me anything you want,” I tell her. She shudders, probably because I’ve guessed her thoughts. She doesn’t move away, though, or snap at me. I watch her toy with her wedding ring. It slips easily off her wet finger, and she puts it back on little by little.

“Who are you?” Mom asks finally, her voice a broken whisper. “What are you?”