I feel Rachel’s hand on my arm and realize I’ve stopped moving. She basically tugs me the rest of the way.
“Hi, Mom,” Rachel says when we reach her. Up close, her face looks pale and puffy, like she’s spent the morning crying. Fine wrinkles bracket her eyes and mouth.
“Hello, girls,” Mom says, her smile quivering.
She ushers us into the entryway and closes the door behind us before putting the dog on the floor. When she straightens back up, she reaches for Rachel, drawing her in for a hug. I turn away, feeling the dog’s wet nose on my calf as she inspects me. I want to lean over and pet her, but my body feels like the soapstone carving in Eli’s family room, cold and hard and unmoving.
My mother stops hugging Rachel and turns to me, her expression almost shy. “Morgan,” she says softly as she leans in, wrapping her thin arms around me. The scent of vanilla—ten times stronger than what I’m used to smelling in my car—rises up and surrounds us, filling my head and releasing a surge of memories. Suddenly, I’m six again, drawing comfort from that sweet, reliable scent.
But I’m seventeen now, and I know my mother can hurt me just as well as she can comfort me.
I stiffen and back out of her arms, just like I did the last time I saw her. If she notices, she doesn’t let it show on her face.
“I’m so happy to see you both,” she says, swiping a finger under each eye. “I missed you more than I can say.”
“Where’s Gary?” Rachel asks as our mother leads us through the house to the kitchen. Everything feels familiar; my mother’s decorating tastes haven’t changed much since we lived in our old house downtown. The living room is all neutral colors, plump pillows, and lush green plants. Framed photos rest on an accent table near the window. One shows Rachel in her graduation cap and gown, and there’s also one of me—a school picture from last year. Dad must have either mailed it to her or given it to her during one of their lawyer meetings.
“Oh, he went out for a bit, to give the three of us a chance to catch up,” Mom replies, opening the stainless steel fridge. The kitchen is bright, with white cupboards and sunny yellow walls. “Iced tea? Water?”
We all choose iced tea and take our glasses to the cozy-looking living room. Rachel and I sit on the couch while our mother settles into the patterned wingback chair diagonal to us. The dog—Sadie—stations herself by Mom’s feet.
“You both look so grown-up and beautiful.” She places her glass on the coffee table, on top of one of the coasters laid out across the shiny wood surface.
I think of my apartment, where we don’t even own a coaster, and feel a stab of guilt. I’m here because my father wanted me to come, but I still feel disloyal for fraternizing with the enemy, so to speak. When Rachel and I said good-bye to Dad before we left this morning, he looked at me with a trace of apprehension in his eyes, like he was afraid I wouldn’t want to come back. I would have assured him that he has nothing to worry about, but I was too busy assuring myself that I’d made the right decision by agreeing to go. However, even now, sitting here a few feet away from my mother, I’m still not sure that I did.
We make some stilted small talk and Mom asks us questions about school and our jobs. Rachel carries most of the conversation, occasionally prompting me to take over. But I don’t. I can’t. My voice seems trapped in my throat, and I can only utter a brief answer here and there, leaving out details unless I’m asked. It’s so excruciating, I’m almost relieved when the front door opens and Gary Ellsworth appears.
He looks exactly the same as I remember—tall, sturdy, with a thick head of dark hair and dark brown eyes that crinkle at the corners when he smiles. I saw that smile so often growing up—at the dealership, at company parties, even at my own dinner table when my parents were still together and good friends with Gary and his ex-wife, a tiny blonde named Pam who he’s currently divorcing. Unlike my parents, they never had kids. Sometimes I feel jealous of those nonexistent kids who didn’t have their nonexistent lives torn apart by their parents’ lies.
“Hello,” Gary says, hovering at the edge of the room. Sadie glances up at him dispassionately, like she’s thinking, Oh, it’s you again. I think I’m beginning to like her.
“Hi . . . Gary,” Rachel says haltingly, and I suddenly remember that we used to call him Uncle Gary when we were little. It makes me slightly nauseated to think about it now, and I take a fortifying gulp of iced tea.
Gary’s gaze slides from Rachel to me and then settles on Mom. “Should I start setting up lunch?” he asks her.
Mom jumps up. “Right. I guess we should get that started.” She looks at Rachel and me. “You girls finish your iced tea. We’ll be right back.”
They go into the kitchen, Sadie trotting after them. The second they disappear, Rachel turns to me and whispers, “Are you okay?”
God, I wish she’d stop asking me that. “Yeah, why?”
“You just, like, glared at Gary instead of saying hello to him. Morgan, I know this is weird, but you really need to—”
“How long are we staying here?” I don’t want to hear what I need to do or how I need to act. We’re two different people, with two different approaches, and just because she’s trying to play nice doesn’t mean I have to do the same.
“Morgan—” she starts to say, but she’s interrupted by the reappearance of our mother in the entrance to the living room.
“Lunch is on the dining room table,” she announces with a wide smile. It’s a touch too wide, like she’s forcing it. What, is she worried we won’t like her cooking anymore?
Rachel and I file into the dining room, where we discover a spread of food usually reserved for all-you-can-eat buffets. There’s chicken and rolls and various kinds of salads, all beautifully displayed like we’re the kind of people who need to be impressed.
“Wow, this looks great,” Rachel says enthusiastically.
I glance at her, wondering how she can be so . . . normal. Like visiting our cheating mother and her lover is a perfectly ordinary occurrence. Doesn’t she harbor even the tiniest grudge? Why does this seem so easy for her? Being here is even more awkward than I imagined. I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly. Maybe a house that looks less like the one I grew up in? A mother who’s distraught and remorseful instead of smiling and prattling on about what she puts in her pasta salad? This whole thing feels surreal.
I take small portions of everything, knowing I won’t be able to eat much. My throat feels tight and my stomach is like an empty washing machine, the liquid inside churning and spinning around nothing. Maybe putting some food in there isn’t the worst idea.
A white tablecloth covers the table, so I don’t realize until I pull out a chair that it’s ours—the same six-chair oak table that once sat in our dining room at the old house. The same table we ate countless meals on, from takeout pizza to Thanksgiving dinner. The same table I accidentally colored on with a black Sharpie when I was four, leaving an irremovable streak. I know, if I were to lift up the tablecloth in front of the chair on the far end, I’d still be able to see it.
Our table, where Dad once sat, is now in the house Mom shares with the ex–best friend who betrayed him in the worst possible way. My stomach seizes even more, and it takes everything in me to sit down and not sprint for my car. I can do this. I can be just as fake as she is.
Somehow, we make it to dessert without any issues. Then, as my mother sets my apple tart in front of me, I catch a glimpse of a ring I’ve never seen before on her left hand. A diamond ring. An engagement ring.
My breath catches. She and Gary are engaged. They’re getting married. Their relationship isn’t just some fling that’ll fizzle out once the novelty wears off. She’s in—all in.
I glance at Rachel to see if she’s noticed too, but she’s digging into her tart with a single-minded focus. I want to say something, maybe ask Mom why her engagement never came up once in the past forty-five minutes, but suddenly I’m too angry to form words. Gary Ellsworth. Dad’s old friend.
My stepfather.
My nausea intensifies, and I’m just about to escape to the bathroom when my mother reaches over and rubs the sleeve of my dark blue V-neck between her fingers. “I like your shirt,” she says with that same too-wide smile. “This shade of blue really suits you.”
Her touch aggravates the thorny ball of rage growing inside me, and I completely forget about my plan to stay silent. “Thanks,” I say, returning her smile with an icy one of my own. “I stole it from Old Navy last spring.”
Mom leans back and blinks in confusion. “What?”
Rachel kicks me lightly under the table, but it barely registers.
“I stole it,” I repeat, then hastily bite into my apple tart. It tastes like sawdust. “That’s what I’ve been doing since you left. Shoplifting. I’ve done it dozens of times in a dozen different stores. Every chance I get.”
Mom looks at Rachel, who’s resting her head in her hands like she can’t bear to watch, and then back at me. “What . . . what is going on? Does Charles know about this?”
My rage ball expands at her mention of my father’s name. “Of course,” I say, dropping the remnants of the apple tart on my napkin. “He’s the one the police called a few months ago when I got caught stealing a pair of designer sunglasses.”
Her face drains of color. I feel a twinge of satisfaction, knowing I’ve disrupted the perfect little life she’s set up for herself here. Did she really believe that starting over with a new house and a new man would absolve her from all the damage she left behind? Well, I’m here to remind her that it doesn’t.
Mom’s gaze shifts to Rachel again. “Did you know about this?”
Rachel looks up from her hands and nods.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mom demands, eyeing my stolen shirt like she’s waiting for it to burst into flames. “Why didn’t any of you tell me? Don’t you think this is something I should have been made aware of?”
I bark out a laugh. “That’s ironic, coming from someone who didn’t tell us she was engaged.”
Rachel’s jaw drops and she looks at Mom, then Gary. Okay, so clearly this is news to her too. Gary’s face goes pink while my mother’s turns even whiter. She rises stiffly to her feet and looks down at me. “I’d like to speak to you alone,” she says, her voice strained.
I shrug and stand up too, eager to get this over with so we can leave and never return. As Mom leads me out of the dining room, I glance back at the table. Rachel is watching us with a frown and Gary just looks bewildered, as if he’d been expecting a nice, peaceful lunch with the daughters of the man he screwed over. Right.
My mother steers me into her bedroom and shuts the door behind us. Before I get a chance to look around, she steps in front of me and grips my arm. I attempt to pull away, but she holds on tight.
“What’s going on with you?” she hisses. “Shoplifting, Morgan? That doesn’t sound like the daughter I raised.”
I give my arm a good yank, finally breaking free. “Makes sense,” I fire back, “considering you’re no longer the mother who raised me.”
She flinches like I hit her, then backs up like she’s going to hit me, though she never has. I almost want her to. A slap across the cheek would end it all—this visit, our relationship, Dad and Rachel’s insistence that I give her a chance. But she doesn’t touch me. She keeps backing away until she reaches the king-sized bed, then sinks down on the edge of the fluffy taupe comforter. She’s all over this room too—neutral colors, bright pillows, green plants. Maybe prettying up her new house distracts her from remembering the old one.
“I knew you were mad,” Mom says, her fingers pressed to her temples. “I knew you hated me for what happened. I was terrified that I’d say or do something to make it worse, so I tried to give you space to deal with it on your own. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you about the engagement right away. But I’m done giving you space, Morgan. I’m done being the only bad guy here. It takes two people to end a marriage, and it’s time you understood that.”
I cross my arms. My heart is thumping in my ears, so loud and so fast that it’s making me dizzy. “Sure,” I bite out. “Dad’s not the one who cheated. You’re the one who screwed around behind his back for two years and then left.”
She drops her hands from her temples and looks at me, her expression sad. “I’m not proud of what I did. But, Morgan, you have to understand how unhappy I must have been to get to that point.”
I scoff and shake my head. “Yeah, poor you, stuck in a marriage with a great man who doesn’t cheat on you or abuse you. It must have been horrible.”
“Cheating and abuse aren’t the only ways to break a marriage,” she says, her voice rising a few octaves. “I felt invisible, okay? Like I didn’t matter. Like my opinions didn’t matter. Your father stopped seeing me. I was just existing, as the mother of his children and the person who paid half the mortgage.”
I shake my head again, unwilling to accept her words. Yes, Dad has his flaws, but he didn’t deserve the nightmare she put him through. Put us all through.
“But Gary,” she goes on, her eyes filling with tears. “He saw me. He listened. He made me feel valued and appreciated, something your father hadn’t done in a very long time. Charles is a good father—he’s always been a good father—but he wasn’t a good husband. At least not for me.”
“But he fought for you.” My voice comes out strangled, and I turn away, willing myself not to cry. I refuse to be vulnerable in front of her. “He asked you to come back and work on your marriage. He told me that.”
“He did, but it was far too late by then. I was happy with Gary. I still am, which is why I said yes last month when he asked me to marry him.” She stands up and creeps toward me like I’m a frightened animal about to bolt. “I hope someday you’ll be able to accept it and find a way to forgive me. I miss you, Morgan. I miss you to the moon.”
I take a step back. “Don’t.”
She pauses and lets out a sigh. “You’re so much like I used to be. I saw everything in black and white. Good and bad. It took me a while to realize there’s a lot of gray in between. You’ll realize it too, eventually.”
I meet her eyes. They’re wet with tears, unlike mine, which are still bone-dry. “I’m nothing like you,” I say. “I actually feel regret for my mistakes.” Then I walk away, leaving her behind in her perfectly coordinated bedroom. I keep walking, past the kitchen and dining room, out the front door, down the stone path, not stopping until I reach my car.
My car, not a castoff of Mom’s. Mine. I sit in the driver’s seat and breathe in the vanilla, which is even more subtle after smelling it firsthand, and wait for Rachel. She emerges ten minutes later and climbs in the passenger side, her features heavy with worry and regret.
“Please don’t ask me if I’m okay,” I tell her as I start the engine.
She opens her mouth, shuts it, and then stares straight ahead, not saying a word. We drive like that, quiet and facing straight ahead, for the next several miles. Then, as we’re flying down the highway with the windows down and the stereo on low, my sister squeezes my knee and says, “I’m sorry.”
I turn to look at her, feeling the wind lift my hair. “I’m not.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
THE REST OF RACHEL’S STAY IS UNEVENTFUL, AT LEAST compared to the trip to Sutton. She cooks healthy meals for us. We spend a day at the beach, and Dad and I come home with sunburns. We go out to dinner twice, once just the three of us and once with Eli, who Rachel immediately takes to. We play board games and watch movies and laugh.
We don’t talk about Mom or what happened during our visit. At least I don’t. Any time Rachel or Dad or even Eli brings it up, I change the subject. I just want to forget it ever happened.
After dinner on Friday, Dad takes Rachel to the airport to catch her eight thirty flight, and I have the apartment to myself for the first time all week. I immediately text Eli.
I’m alone for the next two hours. Want to come over?
&n
bsp; My phone dings almost instantly. Hell yes.
We head straight to my bedroom when he arrives, not wanting to waste any time. After, I set my phone alarm to go off at eight—a half hour before my father is due home—and snuggle against Eli for a few extra moments of warmth.
“Are you sure he’s not going to come home unexpectedly?” Eli asks, lifting his head off my pillow and peering at my closed bedroom door. “Do you have a fire escape?”
I laugh and pull the sheet over us. “He was going to hang out with Rachel until she had to go to her gate, and the airport is a thirty-minute drive from here. So I think we’re good.”
He relaxes a bit and drops his head back down on the pillow. “Why didn’t you go? To the airport?”
“There was no need. Rachel and I said our good-byes here.” I think about how tightly she hugged me, the words she whispered in my ear as she pulled away. Three words phrased like a promise: You’ll be okay. The certainty in her voice ignited a tiny spark of hope in my chest. Out of everyone in my life, Rachel’s opinion of me seems to carry the most weight.
Eli and I lounge in bed until my alarm goes off, then get dressed and head out to the living room to watch TV. That’s what we’re doing when Dad arrives home at twenty to nine. He doesn’t even blink when he walks in and sees us. As far as he knows, we’ve been sitting here all evening, a foot of space between us as we watch a sitcom rerun. Dad usually sees what he wants to see when it comes to his daughters’ love lives.
Later, when there’s nothing left to watch on TV and Dad has gone to bed, I walk Eli down to his Jeep. Before he gets in, he holds me against him and rests his chin on the top of my head.
The Girl You Thought I Was Page 20
