Behind Every Lie(35)

“I think so too. You work here?”

“Yes. I’m Charlotte. This is my father’s art gallery.”

Her father?

A child’s cry filled the gallery. Charlotte bustled over to a stroller next to the cash register and lifted out a baby who looked about a year old. She cradled the girl’s head as she bounced in slow, rhythmic moves. After a moment the baby stopped crying, blinking at me with wide doll-blue eyes and pink-stained cheeks.

“Apologies.” Charlotte returned to me still bouncing the child. “I’m helping my father for a bit. Is there a particular piece you’re interested in?”

Up close, I realized that Charlotte looked very tired. Her mascara was smudged a little under her eyes. She had a smile taped on, the kind I knew was fake because I’d done it so many times.

The little girl grinned and reached out her chubby hands for me. I smiled and extended a finger for her to grasp. “She’s adorable.”

Charlotte kissed the child’s cheek. “And she knows it!”

I swallowed hard, my throat raw as a wound, and the all-too-familiar spiral of regret and anguish coursed through me.

After I found out I was pregnant, I’d decided to have an abortion. But the day I went to the clinic, my mom had unexpectedly shown up. It was fall, the golden afternoon light dripping over the abortion clinic like butter. I still remembered looking at the light, the way it oozed over the buildings, dribbling over the metal and concrete, and thinking, I would kill for some pancakes. It was a crazy thought. I didn’t even like pancakes, and my every waking minute was spent throwing up, so why would I want pancakes?

“Having an abortion won’t change what happened to you,” Mom had said. “It will just damage you more.”

“I didn’t choose this!” I’d exclaimed. “Somebody did it to me, and I can’t even remember who. I can’t have a baby I hate.”

“Sacrifice is hard, but it is part of being a good person. You hold a child’s life in your hands. What happened before is done, it is entirely out of your control. But what happens now is your responsibility.”

The baby squealed, straining against her mother’s arms to get down.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and laughed. “She’s getting to the age where she wants to explore, but I can’t have her wandering around an art gallery.”

She strapped the baby back into the stroller and gave her a cracker to gnaw on, then kissed her forehead. Her eyes were washed with a love so intense it physically hurt me.

“So, was there something I could help you with?”

“I was actually looking for David Ashford,” I said.

“I’m sorry. My father isn’t seeing visitors right now.” Her smile had frozen, revealing one front tooth that was slightly crooked.

“It doesn’t have to be right now,” I assured her. “I can come back later. I don’t mind.”

“No, I’m afraid you don’t understand. My father’s in the hospital. He’s been taken ill, you see. I’m running the gallery in his absence.”

My heart sank. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I hope he’s okay. It’s actually really important that I speak to him. Is he okay to see visitors at the hospital?”

Her gaze turned a shade cooler. “I’m not certain that’s a good idea. What did you say you wanted from him?”

“I … I …” I stuttered, taken aback by her tone.

“What was your name again?”

“I’m …” I reached into my purse and withdrew the birth certificate I’d found in the folder at my mom’s, unfolding it to show her. “I’m Eva. Eva … Clarke. I think he knew my mother a long time ago.”

For a second, Charlotte looked lost, her eyes darting back and forth between me and the paper. Slowly the puzzle pieces clicked into place, her mouth twisting as she took a step away from me. Her elbow caught the edge of a stapler on the desk, and it clattered to the floor. I knelt, fumbling for the stapler.

“Here.” I held it out to her, but she ignored it.

“How dare you!” Charlotte clenched her fists, her voice low. “Are you another reporter? My father is sick! Don’t you get that? He’s sick! Why won’t you leave us alone?” The college students across the room turned to watch us, tittering behind their hands.

I gaped at her, embarrassed and confused, helpless in the face of her anger. “What are you talking about? I’m not a reporter. I’m Eva Clarke.”

“You can’t be Eva Clarke!” she cried. “Eva Clarke is dead!”

I stumbled back, her words striking me like blows.

Dead? But it wasn’t possible. I’d seen my birth certificate.

I shook my head as I backed away from her, the walls pressing in on me. And then I turned and ran outside, into the cool, bright day.



* * *



I leaned against the brick entrance to the Tube station, the air like sludge in my chest. Cold sweat beaded on my face, slid down my back. I felt like I’d been shredded into a million tiny pieces; that a small gust of wind could blow me apart.

Eva Clarke is dead.

The words ricocheted inside my head. Trying to control my spinning thoughts, I watched red city buses, black cabs, and delivery vans lumbering past.