The woman in the drawing was Beth. Kate could hardly breathe. The artist had captured her sister’s beauty, gentleness, and spirit. There was such intimacy in the work—who had drawn it? Who had Beth posed for?
Kate glanced across the room. Conor was standing by a tall bookcase, looking through coffee table–sized art books, apparently waiting forMoonlightto fall out from between the pages. She knew she should show him the box’s contents, but she couldn’t, not before she knew more about her sister’s secrets. When she was sure he wasn’t watching, she slipped the drawing, key, and paper into her jacket pocket and pretended to keep searching her sister’s side of the desk.
17
Sam’s phone rang. She looked at the screen—it was her dad, and the sight of his name made her stomach flip. She wanted to kill the call, but finally she answered.
“Hello,” she said, forcing her voice to remain flat.
“Sammy,” he said. “How’s my girl?”
She did not reply because anything she would say would come out in a scream.
“Not so great?” he asked. “Me neither, honey. It’s just unbelievable. God, I miss your mother. I just want to see her again. You doing okay at Kate’s?”
“Fine,” she said.
“You sound mad,” he said.
“Dad, what do you think?”
“At me?” he asked.
Her blood simmered, nice and low and constant, just like lava in a volcano before it blew. She fought not to.
“I didn’t say that,” she said.
“Well, you sound it. I’m suffering just like you, missing her, and ...”
“You missMom?” she asked, the simmer starting to really bubble. “Because it honestly didn’t seem that way when she was alive.”
“Sam! Don’t you talk to me that way. I am devastated about your mother. Beyond that—I am destroyed. You can’t even imagine. We were trying to fix everything. The new baby, all of us together.”
“But you’re still withher, aren’t you?” Sam asked. “You’re with them right now, Nicola and Tyler, right?”
Silence on the line. She could hear her father breathing—wait, was he turning on the tears? “Dad?” she asked.
“Mom is gone,” he said. “I’m your dad, Sam. I am here for you. That’s all that matters to me right now.” Then he started to babble.Here come the waterworks without the water.
Sam held the phone away from her ear because if she had to listen to her father faux weep, she would start to scream.
“Dad, please stop,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I wish I could, honey,” he said. “I’m so sorry to upset you.” She heard him trying to swallow a sob. She really couldn’t take it.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“Let me come pick you up,” he said.
“You don’t sound great to drive. It’s okay if you get me later,” she said.
“Oh, Sammy. Thanks for understanding. Things are just really hard right now,” he said. “They’ll get better.”
How the fuck?Sam wanted to ask. But instead she just blew a kiss into the phone and said goodbye.
After hanging up, she closed her eyes. She didn’t like the way he always brought pity out in her. She hated herself for thinking that sometimes he faked crying. Her mother had always said what a rough life he had had. Born without money, always wanting it, his father dying young, his mother working just to put food on the table. Sam had never really understood how bad it was.
But now that her mother had died young, she did.
