Good Girl Bad (33)

Something in Freddy softens when she looks at her mother. “No, Mom,” she says. “Maybe I’m just mad at her for being so flakey recently. It’s almost like she started doing to me what she complained her mom did to her. Picking on me for no reason. Saying shitty things.” Here Freddy looks almost embarrassed, and Nate and Nancy exchange glances.

“Can I go now?”

“Sure.” Nate watches Freddy slip out of the room. He’s thrown by her animosity. Did Tabby steal a boy she liked? Did she send the message?

But no, Freddy’s number was in Tabby’s phone. And he’s sure Nancy and Fred wouldn’t have bought their only child a burner phone. They seem to dote on her. Not the way that Rebecca dotes, with expensive gifts and a shiny veneer, but actually really spending time with her.

He remembers once, years ago, having them round for dinner with Rebecca. Things were still good with Rebecca then, they’d had a lovely night. And Nate had watched the way both Fred and Nancy spoke to the girls, like they were really interested in their thoughts, their passions.

He’d thought the two families would start hanging out more, but it had never happened again, though he can’t remember why.

“Was Freddy here on Sunday night?” Nate asks Nancy, his brow furrowed. “We know Tabby went out. She got home about ten. I guess she maybe met her boyfriend. We can’t find any information on her phone, where she was, who she was with. Then she must have left again after midnight.” Nate reddens, thinking about how he knows that, sitting watching the house. He wonders if Nancy can see through him, if she now knows that, too.

“Gen says she had a second phone. That’s weird, right? Freddy only has one phone, right?”

Nancy looks at him strangely, and nods. She looks distracted. “So she was keeping secrets,” she muses. “A second phone is to hide who you’re talking to.”

Nate nods forlornly. “I just wish she’d come to me. Told me what was going on. Because if a boy is texting her on a secret phone, he’s got something to hide, too, right?”

He pauses, though. Because Tabby had come to him, hadn’t she? She’d asked to move in with him, and been weird when he turned her down.

He should have realized that things were bad at home.

How bad, though?

What did it drive Tabby to?

What had she done?





26





Six Weeks Earlier Nate sits outside Rebecca’s house, his hands thrumming on the steering wheel.

He turns the engine off, and braces himself.

Then he shakes his head, and switches the ignition back on, muttering curses.

He should get this over with.

His palms are clammy, his breathing shallow. He leans back, closes his eyes, tries to take deep breaths. Familiar feelings of anger compete with his nervousness.

It’s not practical for the kids to live with him.

He wonders if it’s just Tabby who is thinking about it, or if Gen is as well. He can’t imagine Gen would want to live apart from Tabby. While Tabby is the one everyone’s eyes are drawn to, Nate wishes people would pay more attention to his youngest daughter. Quiet, watchful, thoughtful Genevieve.

If Tabby is struggling, Genevieve would be strong enough to lean on.

She was so even-tempered, Genevieve.

Is Tabby struggling?

Nate wonders why she has asked to live with him now. She’s seemed happy the last few months. Back to her normal self, really. Ever since that little hiccup with Trent and her poor grades, Nate hasn’t seen anything to worry about. She ditched the boy and settled back in to study. If anything, she’s been working even harder than before.

He should talk to Rebecca about it. That’s why he’s here. Because, deep down, he knows why Tabby might want to leave Rebecca’s house. It’s the same reason he wanted to leave. He’s kidded himself all this time that he was the only target of Rebecca’s rages; that she’s mellowed without him there. He’s put it in the “too hard” basket, because mostly Rebecca is perfectly lovely. You only saw that side of her occasionally. It was so rare that after a while you forgot it even happened. You started to think perhaps you were going mad, that this was normal behavior, that she just lost her temper sometimes. But if he really thought about it, if he really let himself remember…well, there was something very violent about Rebecca in distress.

Something terrifying.

After years with her, he thought he understood it, to some degree. It was about power and control, yes. But that was too simplistic an explanation.

If he really dug in deep around it, he thought it was more to do with pain.

When Rebecca felt hurt or vulnerable, she lashed out.

Well, lashed out was an understatement. Lost her mind might be more accurate.

He’d tried to talk to her about it, of course. But it was hard to articulate. It was hard to wrestle with, when you were being told you were wrong all the time.

Gaslit.

Yes. There was a word for it now. Somehow Rebecca managed to twist things around so that he was the one who was in the wrong. That she was just reacting to his bad behavior.

That she was justified, even.

It makes his head hurt, even now.

Most people, he thought, you’d have a conversation with. You’d be able to say, “Well, that seemed out of all proportion. That seemed a little bit unhinged. Let’s talk about it, let’s work it out.”