The framed pictures of children that decorated the room didn’t help Hannah’s nerves any. They all looked so happy. So loved and wanted. Laughing, sleeping, smiling for the camera. Each one of them belonged exactly where they were.
Hannah wandered toward a shelf, rubbing her neck in a hopeless effort to loosen the tension there. When her eye first fell on a small picture in the center of the shelf, Hannah thought the man only reminded her of someone. His arms were slung around two women who shared his black hair and brown eyes, though his face was leaner. And his temples didn’t have nearly as much silver as they did now.
Her eyelids fluttered a little in shock. Her heart fluttered a lot. She let her gaze fly over the other pictures, but he wasn’t in any of them. She moved to the wall next to the door and looked over those photos. And there he was again. Holding a little girl wearing a princess T-shirt and a tiara, a birthday cake on the table near them.
“I added a few jalapeño rolls as well,” Maria said as she returned with a white paper bag. She stood beside Hannah and followed her eyes to the picture. “Gabriel was right to send you here. I told him I couldn’t talk to you, but I was being a coward. He made the right choice.”
Hannah made herself nod. Yes. Sure. Everything was fine.
“Sometimes the child knows better than the mother. Tell him I’m not angry.”
“I will,” she murmured. “Of course.”
Maria pressed the bag into Hannah’s hands. “Vaya con Dios, querida.”
“Thank you,” Hannah said automatically.
She felt Maria hug her again, and she must have hugged back, but Hannah was in too much shock to know what she was doing. She left the house, walked to her car, opened the door, got behind the wheel. But she didn’t dare drive.
Maria was Gabriel’s mother.
The night before, that strange look on his face when she’d shown him the birth certificate, that hadn’t been confusion or irritation; it had been deceit.
Had he known more the whole time? Had he feigned ignorance about Jacob’s Rock from their very first meeting to protect his mother?
Hannah had been relying on him. Leaning on him as a new friend willing to help, and he’d been preventing her from learning the truth.
And then last night. “Shit,” she whispered. They’d had sex. After he knew she was looking for Maria. He’d asked her to stay at his place. Nearly insisted. Why? So he could keep an eye on her? So she would trust him and tell him more?
She touched her mouth. She’d slept with a liar.
“You’re okay,” she said aloud. And she was, wasn’t she? She’d slept with plenty of liars in her lifetime. And hell, her own parents had lied to her about everything, and she’d survived it. Gabriel had lied, and that didn’t mean he was dangerous. Everyone lied.
Except Jeff. He hadn’t lied. He’d told the truth, and she’d believed him, and it had still been all wrong.
She needed to call Jeff. Tell him he’d been right about it being a cult. She needed to call Becky too. Tell her what had happened. What their family had run from. And surely Rachel must remember some of it. A new mother suddenly showing up in the family. A new sister. All of them living in a house with a cult leader.
Maybe Rachel had suppressed it. Or maybe her mind had decided the river and the garden were the only things worth remembering. But to be fair to Rachel, Hannah could only remember two things from early childhood: getting a cast for a broken arm and a vague, warm recollection of her kindergarten teacher that was likely bolstered by the class photo she still had.
That was it. The rest of it was a blank.
Finally steady enough to drive, she started the car and headed down the steep drive toward the highway. She turned right toward civilization and drove numbly up the coast, for once not caring about the blind curves and steep drop-offs.
The tourists standing at the side of the road to stare out at the ocean looked dumb to her now. Stupid. The world wasn’t a beautiful place. That gorgeous landscape would kill you in just one day if you were left exposed. The cold, the current, the jagged rocks. This place wasn’t meant to be inhabited. Nobody could thrive here.
When she reached the boundary of the first town, she breathed a sigh of relief despite that her phone came alive and began chiming with texts and messages. She ignored the alerts and drove through Carmel and into Monterey, following the signs toward the touristy area. It was past noon. She was hungry. All that other shit could wait.
She found a glitzy seafood restaurant at an oceanfront hotel and ordered paella and sourdough bread along with a glass of wine. A propane heater kept her warm as she glared at the dark blots of otters floating on the sea.
She wanted to be home now. Not in Iowa, but in Chicago. She wanted to have never left. If she’d stayed put, none of this would exist. She’d just be the same fucked-up Hannah she’d always been, instead of this new confused version who no longer even had a foundation to push off from.
She was flotsam now. Adrift. No mother. No father she recognized. Half sisters who would hate her for digging these stained skeletons up.
“Couldn’t I have just been a hippie love child?” she asked her glass of wine.
What a naive little fairy tale she’d been weaving, pretending she could strip naked at the beach and know what her mother’s life had been.
She downed the wine and picked up her phone.
There were the usual texts from Becky, working to keep the peace. Hannah ignored them and checked her phone messages. An old one from Jasmine. And one that had come today from a number at her previous employer.
Hannah blew out a long sigh, trying to keep her excitement in check. It could be anything. It could be nothing.
But it wasn’t. It was a job offer.
She listened to the message, but she was too revved up to take in what her old boss was saying. She listened a second time and a third.
He wanted her back. Same salary. Same position. “I can’t offer you a raise, but I hope keeping your settlement will help make that more palatable.” His familiar wry humor made her smile. Just nostalgia, surely. She’d been burned out when she’d left. Relieved to get the hell out of Dodge.
Working the tax system on behalf of greedy billionaires had started feeling dirty. But why? If she didn’t do it, someone else would. It was all legal. She’d never stepped outside the law. But the laws were shit.
And she was really, really good at working the system. Far better than she was at being a good daughter. A good wife.
She wanted to call and say yes right away. She could pack up her suitcase, buy a plane ticket, and be in Chicago by midnight. She could stay with Jasmine or rent a gorgeous hotel room overlooking the city lights. She could wake up and take a walk along the lake. Grab a hot coffee and a warm doughnut. She could have real sushi for lunch. With Jeff, maybe. They could talk about Jacob’s Rock in person.
The paella and sourdough arrived just in time to save her from herself. The impulse to answer immediately faded as she sliced the tiny loaf of bread and spread butter into each slice until it melted.
She couldn’t say yes today. Even she, flawed as she was, recognized that this was yet another impulse to run away. Her life was an ugly mess, and she wanted to turn her back on it. Instead of fleeing, she needed to take a little time to think even if she didn’t want to.
Sliding over to her email app, she pulled up her old boss’s contact and wrote a quick note to let him know she’d received his message. To be honest, I’m stunned and excited by the offer. But I’ll be off the grid for another 24 hours. Ok if I call you tomorrow to discuss at length?
She checked flights to Chicago, but didn’t purchase a ticket. Not yet.
After turning down a second glass of wine, she let herself savor the food. This was her last full day in California. The last full day of this part of her life. For today, she’d sit with what she’d learned. Tomorrow was time enough to decide about the rest of it.
So instead of breaking the news to her
sisters, she sent Becky a meaningless reassurance. I’m doing well. Wrapping things up here. More later! Let me know how Mom is doing.
And just like that she suddenly missed her mother. Not Rain, but Dorothy, the woman who’d loved and raised her. The woman who’d accepted her husband’s child and done her best.
They had never seen eye to eye, and even now Hannah had no idea if that was because of her birth or her genes or just because they’d clashed the same way that millions of mothers and daughters had clashed over thousands of years. Did it matter? Their relationship hadn’t been perfect, but it had been exponentially better than it could have been under the circumstances.
And Hannah missed her. The way she’d worked crossword puzzles after the dinner dishes were done. The little frown of concentration between her eyes when she watched Quincy or Matlock. The soothing little clucks when she fussed over a sick daughter.
The school lunches she’d packed in elementary school, always on the same schedule: PB&J on Mondays and Wednesdays, bologna on Tuesdays and Thursdays, tuna on Fridays. Nothing fancy. No crusts cut off. No little notes included. Just a sandwich and an apple and a thermos of cheap juice. But those three lunches had been waiting on the counter without fail every day, whether her mother was already gone to volunteer at the church or whether she was sick with the flu. Three lunch boxes. Pink Barbie boxes for Rachel and Becky, a red Wonder Woman box for Hannah.
That was being a mother. The everyday work, even when she didn’t understand her daughter’s tempers or moods or music or makeup. Even as Hannah had disappointed her over and over again, Dorothy had never stopped loving her. Hannah had always had a place to go for Christmas or Thanksgiving, and maybe that was what had made it so easy to stay away. She’d always known she was welcome. Loved. Cared for. Her little rebellions had been nothing but tantrums.
She watched the otters playing, and by the time she finished lunch, she’d found the beauty in that harsh sea again.
Whatever Rain had found in Big Sur, it must have been better than what she’d run from. For a time. Perhaps she’d gotten what she’d needed from that place, from Peter Smith, from Hannah, and then she’d moved on to something better.
Hannah hoped that was true. If Rain was anything like her daughter, she’d screwed up plenty of times in her life, but hopefully she’d found herself eventually. Hopefully Hannah would too.
A set of stairs led from the hotel down to a beach trail, and Hannah walked along it for a few minutes until she found a bench that she could settle on to call Jeff.
“You were right,” she said as soon as he answered. “It was definitely a cult.”
“What did you find?” The question was sharp with worry.
“I tracked down the woman who assisted at my birth.”
“She was part of the cult?”
“No, she just played midwife for them. She seemed like a very nice woman.”
His pen tapped the desk. “She was willing to talk about it?”
“She was. She said Jacob Smith started preaching about end times and repopulating with true believers. He said God spoke to him and told him it was time to live biblically. He took two more wives.”
“Wow.”
“My father was hesitant to accept polygamy, apparently.”
“Wait. You’re not saying . . .” His voice trailed into uncertain silence.
“What?”
“Was Jacob Smith your father?”
“No. No. In order to convince my dad . . .” She sighed and told herself to just say it quickly. “Jacob gave my dad another wife. A young girl. She was . . . she was seventeen. That was my mother.”
“Holy shit, Hannah. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. He took another wife. And they had me.”
“Wow. That’s . . . Are you okay?”
This time, she didn’t cry. She wanted to, but she didn’t. “I’m freaking out a little bit, but I’m glad I know the truth. I think.”
“I can’t wrap my head around it,” he said. “It must be almost impossible for you.”
“Yeah. I can’t understand how he did that to Dorothy. Or to Rain.”
“Did you get her last name, at least? So you can try to find her?”
“No. Maria didn’t know it. She said Rain ran away after I was born. She never came back.”
“She was so young.”
“I know. I don’t blame her. It was a really fucked-up situation. More fucked-up than anything I even came near as a teenager.”
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m really, really sorry.”
She closed her eyes to hold back tears. She was done with crying. But she wished he were here or she were there. Wished he could put his arms around her, even if it was for the last time. “Thank you.”
“So after your real mom ran off, they faked the birth certificate?”
“Yes. They convinced Maria it would be better for me. And I guess it was.”
“Then what happened?”
“I guess my dad packed up his family and left. Thankfully. God knows what would have become of us if he’d stayed.”
“I, uh . . . I may have an answer to that. I wanted to be absolutely sure before I said anything.”
“What?” she demanded, but he still hesitated. His pen tapped faster. “Come on, Jeff. Just tell me. I can’t live with more suspense.”
“It’s something from a Mexican newspaper, and I’m still checking on the translation.”
“A Mexican paper? What are you talking about?”
The pen stopped. His chair squeaked. “In 1974 the body of a white man was found in the Sonora region of Mexico. He was found with three women, a man, and a small child. All of them dead.”
“That could—” she started past the thick fear in her throat, but her throat wanted to seal itself up. She swallowed several times until the dread loosened its hold. “That could have been anyone.” But Maria had said he was down to one male follower when he left. Three women. One child.
“They’d arrived a year earlier. They bought a ranch. He started a church. His name was Jacob.”
“Jacob what?”
“He called himself Jacob Christo.”
“And you think it was him?” She was whispering now, as if someone might hear about this terrible crime and report her. “My grandfather?”
“The age seems right. And the timing. The paper said they all drank poison.”
Poison.
“The women were named as Frances, Violet, and Cora Christo. Do you recognize any of those names?”
“I don’t. I’m not sure I would. But you think that’s him? And you think he killed them all?”
“That I’m not sure of. They might have taken poison willingly. It’s happened before.”
Right. Jonestown. They’d mixed the poison with Kool-Aid and served it to the kids too. “Maria said after my father left, a lot of others left too. He was down to just a few people when he sold the land and disappeared.”
“He lost control. And that’s one thing men like him hate. It might have pushed him over the edge.”
“That’s . . . Well, I was going to say that’s crazy, but I guess that’s pretty obvious.”
“Yeah. I’ll keep looking. I’m not sure there will be anything more to find, but I’ll try.”
“Thank you, Jeff. Really. Thank you for all of this. I’m sorry again. About everything.”
“I know you are.”
She wasn’t sure she should ask, but she was going to. Screw it. “I’ve got some business in Chicago. I’m thinking I’ll fly in this week. Could we grab coffee or something? Drinks? It’s fine if you’re busy.”
“No, just let me know. It’d be nice to see you.”
“Okay, good. We could talk.”
“Sure. Give me a heads-up when you’re coming. I’ll make sure my schedule is free.”
She hung up and walked to her car so she wouldn’t sit there staring at the ocean and thinking about Jeff. He was her ex-husband. Soon to be, at least. She’d slept w
ith another man. They still had a divorce to settle. And she wasn’t going to stare dreamily out at the sea and pine for this man she’d walked away from.
She could pine for him while driving, like a reasonable person. Anticipating that there might be a little more pining tonight, she stepped into a corner convenience store for a bottle of red.
Halfway back to Big Sur, she remembered that she’d meant to grab some takeout while she was in town so she wouldn’t have to go to the roadhouse for dinner. She ignored her panicked impulse to turn around. She could go to dinner somewhere else. Or if she was feeling as antisocial as she felt right now, she could eat the rolls his mother had given her.
His mother.
“Good God,” she whispered to herself for likely the fifth time that day.
Her grandfather was a murderer or as good as one, her father was a polygamist, and the man she’d started an affair with had been trying to keep her from the truth.
She was definitely buying a ticket out of here as soon as she got to her laptop. She’d lock herself in her cabin, pack her suitcase, have herb rolls and wine for dinner, then get the hell out of Big Sur first thing in the morning.
By the time she got back to the Riverfall, she told herself she was fine, but the truth was that her heart stumbled with fear when she had to slow for her turn in front of the roadhouse. Was he watching for her? Did he know she’d seen Maria? She took the turn too fast, gravel pinging against the undercarriage of the car as she jolted up the hill.
Had it been nothing but deception from the moment she’d revealed her reasons for being here? Had Gabriel been encouraging her interest just to pump her for more information?
She laughed bitterly at her poor choice of imagery, then slowed as she drove past the inn.
Her mother had lived here. In this house. With her father and sisters and Dorothy. Hannah drove on but felt pulled back to the inn. Maybe if she’d stayed there this whole time, she would have felt more of the truth instead of getting lost in the fantasy of romantic hippies.
Half Past: A Novel Page 20
