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“You never told us about her.”
“She passed when I was six. I hardly remember what she looks like, not to mention any personality traits.”
And what I do remember, I don’t trust. I grew up with the notion Patrice Corbin was a real monster, an agenda promoted by Douglas. The gist of it was that she cared more about Calypso Hall than about me and spent her days as far as humanly possible from the Corbin clan.
I knew she had an apartment in Manhattan, and that she stayed there regularly when I was a child. She also had a lover, Douglas made a point of lamenting to me, probably in order to erase his own wrongdoings. From my few recollections of her, Patrice was mild and pretty. But again, what did I know? I was just a stupid kid.
“Did you have a good relationship?” Christian asks.
“I wassix,” I reiterate. “Back then, I had a pleasant relationship with everything other than broccoli.”
“We’re just trying to figure out what made you the way you are,” Riggs explains, grinning from ear to ear. He flings an arm around my shoulder. “You know, a total nut job who thought Gracelynn Langston was a good idea.”
“Ah, yes. Because I’m the only one here who has a messed-up relationship with the fairer sex.” I return my attention to my book.
“It’s not just that,” Christian explains. “That you don’t remember your mother very much is not out of the ordinary. The fact that you haven’t put any effort or resources into learning anything about her ... now, that smells fishy to me.”
I down my beer, pick up my book, and bow them farewell. “Thanks for the psychological assessment, gentlemen. Keep your day jobs.”
With that, I leave.
At home, I take out an old photo album—the only one I have—and flick through pictures of my mother and me before her boating accident. Christian and Riggs aren’t completely wrong—I haven’t spared a minute of thought about my mother in decades.
There was little point. She was a terrible human, possibly worse than my father.
The first picture is of her holding me when I was a newborn, staring at me with pride. She looks exhausted, so I’m guessing I was as difficult a baby as I am an adult. The second is of her standing above me, holding my hands, as I wobble in what must’ve been my first steps, wearing only a diaper. In the third one, we’re both throwing yellow-orange leaves in the air, dressed for autumn. The fourth is of Patrice and me making a cake together, looking messy and happy.
She doesn’t look like the devil my father made her out to be. In fact, she very well could have been a saint. I will never know since both of them are completely and thoroughly dead.
The truth, unfortunately, was laid to rest right along with them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WINNIE
“What do you mean, gone?” I ask Jeremy four weeks afterThe Seagullpremieres.
“Disappeared. Not here anymore. Missing.Poof!” Jeremy snaps his fingers in a magic gesture.
“How can the poster just ... vanish?” I look around us in the lobby, still hoping to find it rolled and tucked in a corner. “It took over the entire hall.”
Jeremy flings his arms helplessly. “Sorry, Miz Ashcroft. When I got here this morning, it wasn’t there anymore.”
The big poster, starring Rahim and me, is no longer here. My guess is some punks took it. Stealing Broadway memorabilia was big when I attended Julliard. But people usually stole small stuff. Keychains and tiny props left onstage. Not an entire poster.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Lucas wiggles his finger in the air, already on his phone. He is so distraught his hat fell off, and he hasn’t bothered to pick it up. “I’ll go up to management and ask to see the tapes from last night. Could be the cleaning people, trying to make a fast buck on eBay.”
“Come on now.” Rahim puts a hand on my shoulder. “We have a show to do. Don’t worry about the poster. We’ll get it back.”
“But what if we don’t?” I ask. “It’s an expensive poster. And it was good for business. People could see it from the outside. We had walk-ins because of it.”
We’re already at a point of disadvantage, with virtually no budget, without losing the poster.
“Don’t think about it now,” Rahim says. “There’s nothing we can do but kill it onstage.”
And so we do. The show is explosive. I feel like a different person onstage. Maybe because Iama different person once the bright lights hit my face. I’m the old Winnie. The one I left behind in Mulberry Creek. She takes over every night and saves the day.
As soon as I step down from the stage, reality catches up with me, and I feel worn out. The last couple of weeks have been rough. I’m still adjusting to the knowledge that Paul had a secret life, and not one he’d have been proud of. Four days ago, I finally washed his pillowcases. Shoved his running shoes in the shoe rack. Being reminded every second of the day of the man who romanced his colleague doesn’t comfort me as it used to, knowing what I know now.
