Behind Every Lie(64)

He climbed in, dripping water all over the backseat.

“Thanks, Mrs. Hansen!” he said, a smile stretched ear to ear.

I couldn’t help returning the smile. What a lovely boy. So polite. But, dear Lord, he was too thin. I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. His clothes were threadbare, his jeans torn at the knees. His jacket was faded, a stain that looked like ketchup or maybe barbecue sauce on the collar.

Jacob and Eva chatted the rest of the way to the bus stop about a photography club they had joined and how to use a long exposure to capture the stars in the Milky Way. When we pulled up to the bus stop, she jumped out without giving me a backward glance. She seemed to have utterly and completely forgotten what she had said just a few minutes before. But I hadn’t.

Did she really think she was less loved just because she wasn’t Mike’s biological daughter? She must never find out about me. I couldn’t bear for her to feel unloved by both of us. The science of how she came into existence was unimportant. She was mine as surely as if I had borne her myself. While my heart would always ache for the Eva I lost, I loved the daughter I had now. Her big feelings and big opinions. Her creativity and sensitivity and insight.

I imagined the sweet weight of her in my arms when she was young, the soft pad of toddler’s feet coming down the hall, then the warmth of her little body as she climbed into my bed. How she used to press her head into the crook of my arm while we read stories together, and the sound of her tinkly laugh floating through the house when she played with her dolls.

I rolled my window down. “Eva!”

She said something to Jacob and he jogged across the street, disappearing amidst a crowd of youths. Eva hefted her backpack higher on her shoulder and came back to the car.

“Yeah?”

I wanted to tell her that Mike and I both loved her, despite our divorce. That the blood in her veins did not change that and never would. I wanted to reassure her that she wasn’t responsible for the breakup of our family or the dissolution of our marriage. In fact, she was the reason I even had a family. Honestly, I should be thanking her!

But I could not seem to speak.

I am not a stupid woman. I could tell you how many sunspots were on the sun (up to two hundred at any one time) or which planet rained glass (HD 189733b) or which dwarf planet had volcanoes that spewed ice (Ceres). But the instant I needed to speak honestly about feelings, I became utterly useless.

I had a sudden memory of my own mother driving me to school shortly before she disappeared. I was thinking about the girl who had stolen my bra during PE and hung it over the school’s front door. I wanted my mum’s reassurance and love, but she was staring out the window, unbearably vacant. I knew better than to complain. There would be no motherly hugs, no comforting words. She was not interested in how I felt or what I had to say.

Perhaps, I realized now, it was a coping mechanism for a life she didn’t choose.

Had I done that to Eva? I certainly hadn’t meant to, but perhaps that was always the way with parenting. You tried so hard to be different than your own parents. To be better, listen more, get frustrated less, but in the end you just got stuck in the same damn loop. Perhaps all parents felt that their choices were a barrier to the life they dreamt of when they were young. Only when you became a parent yourself could you fully understand that they did the best they could.

I reached for Eva’s hand, gave it a kiss, then squeezed it three times, hoping she knew what I meant.

I. Love. You.



* * *



The morning flew by, and I quickly fell into the familiar pattern of teaching. Routine comforted me more than ever these days. It was marvelous to know that across the planet and, indeed, the universe, the rhythms of our lives were governed by our journey through space, from the pull of the tide to the time we woke in the morning.

When my classroom emptied at lunch, I headed to the park across the street to enjoy what had turned into a fine autumn day. An unseasonably warm breeze ruffled the lacy boughs of the blood-red Japanese maples. A swirl of clouds as white as a turning page meandered toward Puget Sound. Crunchy yellow leaves whirled through the air like birds.

Autumn had always been my favorite season. Something about the light and the air—like breathing in hope and new beginnings. I loved hiking through the forest as orange and red leaves crackled under my feet; curling up under a blanket with a book; the gentle patter of rain on the roof.

I sat on a bench, my hair partially obscuring my peripheral vision, which was why I only just caught the outline of the woman emerging from beyond a tree in the distance. I squinted and adjusted my glasses. A cold shiver slid down my spine, and my mind turned to liquid.

I stood, unable to comprehend what I was seeing.

Her hair was a duller shade than it used to be, her mouth thin and pale, her skin now creased at the edges of her gray eyes. Her clothes were modest and shabby, the type that came from a charity shop, although she wore them with pride.

But it was her, without a doubt.

She was back from the dead.

Her name burst in my mouth like a radish, sharp and bitter.

“Rose.”





thirty-three

eva




LIAM CLEANED UP the mess I’d made, sweeping up the broken glass, throwing the torn cushions away, and washing the things that could be salvaged. He insisted I lie down on the couch, but it felt wrong watching him clean up my mess. What was happening to me?