Behind Every Lie(52)

“No.” I’d turned my face away. I couldn’t even look at the baby without thinking of that night. How could I possibly care for her, love her the way a mother should?

“Eva—”

“Get her out of here!”

I had wanted to protect my daughter from my past, not make her a part of it. I wanted her life to be fresh and innocent and pure.

Maybe Rose had wanted the same for me.





twenty-seven

eva




THE NEXT MORNING, my plane set down at Sea-Tac Airport. A bank of clouds was just disappearing, a pink smear of light touching the horizon. The tarmac still glistened from the rain, drops of moisture dribbling down the plane’s windows.

I’d slept in random bursts most of the flight from London, the stress of the last few days wearing on me. My eyes were gritty. My mouth tasted like a badger had crawled into it and died. I could feel my body inching toward total collapse, so after frog-marching through passport control, I headed to Starbucks.

Even though it’d only been three days, it felt like a lifetime had passed since Jacob had dropped me off at this airport. Time was relentlessly ticking by, each second dissolving like a mirage across the desert. I’d found out so many things in London, but none of them answered my one burning question: Had Sebastian killed my mom?

Or had I?

Instead of taking the taxi to Mom’s house, where Melissa’s car was still parked, I gave the driver my dad’s address. He pulled up to a small rambler perched on a neatly manicured lot a few blocks behind Angle Lake. Dad had moved here after the divorce. Even though they’d tried to split custody of us, like most things in life, the break wasn’t even. I was mostly at Mom’s while Andrew was mostly at Dad’s because it was closer to his school. Gradually I visited less and less. It was too hard seeing how their lives had moved on, as if our family had never existed.

“Eva!” Dad looked exactly the same when he opened the door: large potbelly, kind hazel eyes, a hooked nose, bald except for a thin ring of hair at the bottom, stretching from ear to ear. He grabbed me in a tight bear hug.

“Hey, Dad.” I wrapped my arms around him, my voice muffled against his wool sweater.

Ever since he’d remarried, there had been a shift in our relationship. But he was my dad, the only father I’d ever known, and it felt good to be in his arms.

“I’ve been calling you. Are you okay?”

I nodded.

“Come in, come in.” He moved aside and I followed him into the living room. “I was just finishing breakfast.”

I smiled. “Two eggs and toast?”

Dad was a predictable man, wrapped in his routines. It was probably what had attracted Mom to him in the first place.

The living room had been updated since I was last here. Donna, his new wife, had painted the walls a warm magnolia and hung sheer lemon drapes from the windows. A cream wool rug offset the brown carpet.

I caught sight of myself in a wooden-framed mirror hanging over the fireplace. My roots were growing out, the mahogany red stark against the bottled toffee color I carefully applied every month. I looked haggard, almost unrecognizable, like I needed about four years of uninterrupted sleep.

We sat next to each other on the corduroy couch. Tux, Dad’s ancient black-and-white cat, ran across the room and jumped onto my lap. I nuzzled his neck as his purr kicked in.

“This is crazy.” Dad shook his head. “I mean … I just can’t believe it. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to normal people. I feel like I’m watchin’ a movie or somethin’.”

I snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“Do you know what happened? The police aren’t saying much, and Andrew’s too broken up to talk about it.”

“Mom was poisoned.”

Dad slumped against the couch in shock, blowing out a stunned breath. His cheeks jiggled with the movement. “But … she’s a high school teacher! Why would someone poison her? Do they know who did it?”

I hesitated, stroking Tux’s silky fur. “No, but I think I might be a suspect.”

“You! Why?”

I tried to process that question.

What if I did what the detective thinks I’ve done?

Had I, in a moment’s fury, lashed out, foolish and impulsive, an action bitterly regretted but impossible to undo? Maybe Mom had told me about our past. Maybe I’d meant to punish her for lying to me. I’d lashed out before. How could I trust that I hadn’t done it again?

“Do you remember when I left Seattle and moved to Whidbey Island?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I left because Mom and I got in a massive fight. I was living with her after … what happened to me. I’d given the baby up for adoption, and Mom came into my room one day. We started shouting at each other.”

“You made the choice to give the baby up, Eva. Now it’s time to stop being a victim and start being a survivor.”

Only now did I realize I’d never forgiven her for those words. My bitterness and unforgiveness had burrowed inside me, folding into the fabric of my identity and creating the distance that had grown between us.

“The cops didn’t even believe me when I told them what happened, and then I found out I was pregnant and I had to give the baby up. I was so angry that she could think everything would just go back to normal. I totally freaked out.”