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She had taken all of our money in her final lesson to me. I should never let anyone in—even her.
And for what? The day I married Eddie, I had gone against everything she taught me. I’d thrown away every word of her hard-won advice. I’d done it the day I’d first seen him in the hall outside my bedroom, to tell the truth.
If she knew about Eddie, I had no idea what my mother would do. But I knew her first instinct would be to destroy him in any way that she could. Now that she’d stolen my money and was asking about my husband, I was relieved that I’d never told my mother the name April Delray. She still didn’t know it, and she didn’t ask. When she used my name—which was almost never—she called me by the name of the dead girl she’d given birth to, who I’d left behind in California.
“There’s no man,” I repeated, because she had to believe it. She simply had to. I had finally learned my lesson. “I wanted that money. I earned it as much as you did. I never told on you. I never went to the police. I kept your secrets. You know that.”
“Then make more,” Mom said. “I taught you to be resourceful. This appeal is life or death. I hate to be a Prime Bitch, but if I lose this time, I lose. I looked out for you long enough. I have to look out for me.”
I closed my eyes. She had robbed me—my mother had robbed me. I didn’t know why even a small part of me was surprised. I didn’t know why it stung. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know why it mattered.
“I’m in a situation,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ll get out of it.”
My mother’s words were sure, her confidence the only mothering she could give me. “You’ll get out of it. Do you know how I know? Because I made you, in more ways than one. And if it was me in your situation, no matter what it is, I’d get out of it. I’d do whatever it takes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Eddie and I slid the dresser against the bedroom door again. Rose wasn’t home, but she could be here any minute.
He was sweaty after his run, but I didn’t care. After the phone call with my mother, I needed him. I met him halfway across the living room when he came through the door, put my hands on his damp shoulders, kissed him, and said, “Eddie Carter,” in his ear. He was happy to oblige.
Afterward, we lay catching our breath in the twisted sheets. Eddie had a dazed expression on his face that made me smile.
“Okay,” he said at last. “That was like a real honeymoon.”
I stared at the ceiling and said nothing.
“We should probably shower.” His voice was lazy. “I’m so goddamned tired.”
My heart was thumping in my chest, and it wasn’t only because of what we’d just done. I felt raw, exposed. Panicked. The money being gone, then the conversation with my mother, had shaken something loose in me. I hated it, and I couldn’t stop it.
I was so good at not thinking about the things I didn’t want to think about. Except right now, I wasn’t.
Tell him, I thought. Tell him.
If I told him, I’d lose everything. I didn’t have much, but I wasn’t willing to risk it. Not yet. Not now. I had worked too hard for it. It mattered. Eddie mattered. This marriage mattered, and I wasn’t used to having something in my grip that I didn’t want to let go of. Something I wasn’t willing to leave behind.
“Do you ever wonder about your parents?” I asked into the quiet. “Your real ones?”
Eddie’s voice was slurring. He was drifting off into sleep. “I used to. Not so much anymore.”
“Do you ever wonder if you’re like them? If being like them is inevitable, even if you don’t know who they are?”
“That’s an intense question,” Eddie said, but of course, he answered. “Yeah, I’ve wondered that. I don’t even know if I look like either of my parents. I don’t have a picture of my mother, and I don’t remember my father at all.” He rubbed his forehead slowly. “Maybe one of them was a genius. Or a psychopath, you know? Maybe that’s why there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I would be like this, even if I hadn’t gone overseas.”
I was quiet, staring at the ceiling. My eyes were dry as sand.
“It was getting better for a while,” Eddie went on, his voice quiet. “But lately...” He trailed off.
“Lately what?”
“It isn’t getting worse, exactly. It’s changing. I don’t see the stuff I used to see. I see different things—or at least, I think I do. The nightmares have stopped, but sometimes I feel like I’m dreaming.”
“Dreaming?” I asked.
“Dreaming everything,” Eddie said. “That I’m here, living this life, with you. Like I woke up and I was just here one day, and I don’t know how I got here. Logically, I know that I came home, I met you, we got married. But I get confused. The police kept asking me why I made the turn and ended up in Coldlake Falls, and I don’t have an answer for them. I don’t know, because I don’t really remember. I honestly don’t know how I got here.”
My heart was still beating in my throat. Because I didn’t remember, either. I had dozed off when we made the turn onto Atticus Line. Or had I? Did I remember that, or was it the story I told myself? What did I really remember for sure?
