Behind Every Lie(72)

“Mom, I was raped,” she said, still crying. “And now I’m pregnant.”



* * *



The whole horrifying tale tumbled out.

“Oh, Eva. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Eva bent over her knees, pressing her face into her hands. “I was ashamed! And … I don’t exactly remember it!”

“What do you mean, you don’t remember?”

“Everything was spinning, so I went outside to get some air. I remember being in the alley, and then a man was there.…” She started sobbing again, her shoulders shaking. “I went to the police, but they didn’t believe me and I had no evidence to prove it had happened, so I left. I tried to convince myself I’d just imagined it, but now I know I didn’t!”

“You were drugged.” My voice sounded flat, unemotional, and I was glad, because inside I felt like I would be sick. All this time I thought I was keeping her safe from Seb, but it was the other dark things in the world I should have been looking out for. Once again I had failed to keep her safe.

“Yeah, I think so. I have to get an abortion.”

“You are not serious!” I stiffened, horrified. “What happened to you isn’t the baby’s fault!”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You think it’s my fault?”

“There’s no need to curse at me,” I snapped. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I can’t have a rapist’s baby! And how would I even support it? I just got fired from the restaurant. I’m too sick and too messed up to even work.”

“Move back in here,” I said. “I’ll help. You are responsible for a child’s life. There is nothing more important than that.”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know. This is so messed up, Mom. No matter what I decide, it’s going to break me.”

“Then make the best choice for the child.”



* * *



Eva did move back in with me, and she agreed not to get an abortion, but despite my best arguments, she decided to give the baby up for adoption. All through those long months she stayed with me, her stomach expanding as her cheekbones hollowed out, I hoped she would change her mind. I hoped that as soon as she held her baby’s tiny body in her arms, she would forget how it had been made.

But I was mistaken.

After she gave birth, I brought Eva the small, pink bundle of her daughter and begged her to hold her.

“Just for a minute, Eva,” I said. “See the miracle you’ve created.”

She turned her head away, refusing to look at the child.

I remembered holding my daughter after I’d given birth, the sound of her cry when the maternity nurse thumped her on the back, the heaviness in my breasts and the weight of responsibility that had pressed on my shoulders.

I would have given anything to have her back. Eva didn’t know what she was giving up.

“Get her out of here!” Eva snapped.

I took the baby out to the hallway, where the nurse scooped her out of my arms and handed her to the new parents. I watched them coddle her, stroke her downy forehead, and was mortified to find myself unable to contain my emotions.

I hurried away, thumping down the metal staircase and out the door into the brisk spring air. Everything was bursting into life, cherry blossoms and azaleas and cornflowers bright in bloom. I sat on a bench, trying to gather my thoughts.

There is a point, I recognize, at which a parent must resist being the protector and instead abandon their child to their own choices. The loss shook me, but I could not change it.

After a little while I went inside. I flung the door to the ward open, almost colliding with a well-built man with tidy fair hair. He stepped aside, holding the door open. The cuff of his business suit rode up, exposing a pale slice of white flesh and a silver Rolex.

My heart pulsed as adrenaline charged up my throat. I heard Seb’s laugh as he flashed his new Rolex at me. The face you put on becomes your identity.

I ran to Eva’s bedside, but she was sleeping, blissfully unaware of anything.

He isn’t Seb He isn’t that guy from Chicago, I assured myself, my hands shaking. Anybody could have a Rolex.

But even though I repeated it to myself over and over, I didn’t quite believe it.





thirty-seven

eva




I KILLED SEBASTIAN CLARKE.

The realization made my body go completely boneless. My fingers, my toes, my elbows, everything felt like it was floating, completely separate from my body.

“Eva, you there?” Jacob’s voice on the phone startled me back to the present.

“Yeah, sorry. I don’t know where my head is.” I forced a light laugh. “Hey, I need to get going. I’ll call you later, okay?”

I expected him to question me, to ask why, the way Liam did. But Jacob just said, “Sure. Talk to you later.”

A sick kind of adrenaline bubbled in me. My phone rang, and when I looked, it was Detective Jackson. I knew I should answer it, but I was too scared. My hand hovered over the phone. Detective Jackson had been so distracted earlier. Had he already gotten the arrest warrant? Was he on his way here now?

The phone stopped ringing and went to voice mail, then started up again.