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“That isn’t what they’re saying in the newspapers and on the radio. In town.”
“We didn’t cause the trouble, Mama. We’re trying to stop the trouble!”
“Then why don’t you turn yourself in to the authorities and explain it to them? They’ll help you.”
Evie shook her head. “That’s what you want to believe, because you’ve never been on the wrong side of the law.”
“I should say not!”
“The law works for the powerful.”
“Well.” Her mother pressed her lips tightly together, cutting off whatever she had been about to say next. She peered into her tea. “You don’t know what this has done to your father.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve given up garden and bridge club. I can’t show my face in town.”
Oh, why couldn’t her mother just once believe in her? Why couldn’t she listen? “The people who are after us are the people who killed James!”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “You’re being deliberately cruel, Evangeline. You know that James was killed in the war.”
“He was, yes. But not in the way you think. Not in the way they told you. I need to tell you something about James. And Uncle Will.”
Her mother’s lips quivered. “Poor Will. Poor, poor Will.”
Evie swallowed hard. “Do you remember those vitamins Uncle Will gave you when you were expecting James?”
Her mother’s expression suggested she was searching her memory. “Yes, I do. What of them?”
There was nothing but the truth now. Evie told her mother everything about Project Buffalo, and Will’s part in it, and her mother’s unwitting part as well. How those vitamins had turned her children into Diviners experiments, how James had died during a top secret military operation at Jake Marlowe’s estate during the war. She spared her the grisly details of Marlowe’s Eye. No mother should have to hear that.
When Evie had finished, her mother looked worn out from the force of so much truth all at once. She shook her head and waved her hands as if pushing that truth away. “Will would never do such a thing!”
“But he did, Mother. He did.”
“No. He wasn’t that sort of person.”
“He was a lot of things. Most people are.” How easy it was to absolve yourself. “We all are,” Evie corrected.
“You’re telling me that my brother had something to do with James’s death?”
“Yes,” Evie said, so softly it was almost as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“I just can’t believe it,” her mother said, shaking her head again. And Evie wondered if that was an affirmation or a denial. Her mother’s face crumpled. “Why did you come?”
The lump in Evie’s throat hurt as she swallowed. “I wanted you to know that I’m not a criminal. I… I wanted you to know that you were a good mother, and that… I love you.”
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, which she blinked away quickly. She folded the hem of her napkin over twice. “Well. I appreciate that.”
The disappointment stung. Deep down, Evie had known her mother was who she was. She was never going to sweep Evie into a warm, motherly hug and tell her daughter that she loved her no matter what. But knowing this didn’t stop Evie from wanting that elusive affection. Hoping for it. This time.
She’d come home, she told herself, so that she might tell her mother that she loved her. Now she realized that she’d lied to herself. She’d come home because she’d hoped at last to feel loved.
“I must be getting back,” Evie said numbly. “I have a show to do.”
“Evangeline!”
“Yes, Mother?” Evie said, letting the hope back in.
