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Six Months Later
Her blond roots were growingout. Every time she looked in the mirror she could see the hairs sprouting like a golden crown bursting free from her scalp. As long as she could remember, her hair had been black, her pale roots obsessively painted over every few weeks by her mother.It’s what we have to do to stay safe,Julianne would say. And staying safe was the reason why they did what they did. The dyed hair. The moves from town to town. The repeated warnings:Never trust anyone, Amy. You never know who will betray us.
But then they moved to Boston and her mother found a job in the café across the street from the hospital and she met Dr. Michael Antrim. They fell in love and Julianne cast aside her own advice. They became a family. They had a home, a permanent home, one they would never have to leave. They were finally safe.
Until a completely random hit-and-run accident sent Amy tothe hospital, where a nurse named Sofia saw the scar on Amy’s chest and the rare blood type listed in her chart and the blond roots peeking out beneath her dark hair.
And their safe little world imploded.
Now her blond roots were longer than they’d ever been, longer than they’d been allowed to grow. Amy dipped her head, ran her fingers through the bicolor strands. This time she would not bother to darken them. She would let them grow; it was part of her transformation, back to the girl she used to be, a girl who was still a stranger to her. Every week she will surrender a little more of herself, a little more of Amy, until the real girl reclaimed it all.
There was no longer any reason for Lily to hide; everyone knew the truth now. Or part of the truth.
No one would ever know all of it.
Julianne had confessed to killing both Sofia Suarez and James Creighton. She had little choice but to confess; the evidence was there, in the record of the phone call she made to Creighton, a call in which she promised he would finally spend time with his long-lost daughter, Lily. He did not stalk them to Lantern Lake. He was invited there.
DNA had proved he was Amy’s real father, but that only meant it was his sperm that fertilized the egg. He did not watch her grow up. It was Julianne who fed her and clothed her and sang to her. Julianne who protected her.
And who, in the end, sacrificed herself for her. Julianne pleaded guilty to both murders so Amy could walk free, all charges against her dropped. Amy, after all, was merely a victim, an abducted child who over the years bonded so thoroughly with her caregiver that loyalty clouded her judgment. She loved her mother; of course she would fetch her mother the gun. Of course she would lie about the death of James Creighton. Of course she would protect Julianne.
The way I protected her before.
She thought of the ugly rental house on Smith Hill Road where she lived with her mother and Bruce when she was eight years old. She remembered the hillside looming outside her window and the smell of ancient cigarette smoke that clung to the walls. She remembered all of this, right down to the stained wallpaper in her little closet of a bedroom. Faded blue cornflowers. She would huddle in bed, listening to the shouts in her mother’s room, and she’d trace those blossoms on the wall, her finger skipping across the rip in the paper, where the old wallpaper showed through. Something tatty and green. Beneath the prettiest surfaces, there was always something ugly waiting to show itself. How many hours did she poke at that wallpaper, longing to be somewhere else, listening to Julianne’s sobs and the thud of Bruce’s fists on her mother’s flesh? And the words he always used to make Julianne obey him:If I lose, you lose. If you tell them what I did, they’ll take your little girl away.
Then one day, it all stopped. One day Amy could no longer stand the screaming. That was the day she finally found the courage to creep out of her bedroom, to walk into the kitchen and pull a knife from the drawer. When you are desperate enough, you find the strength to plunge a knife into a man’s back. Even if you are only eight years old.
But the knife didn’t go in deep enough to kill Bruce, only enrage him. He howled in pain and turned to face her, and at that moment it was not a man she saw standing over her, but a monster whose rage was now focused on her.
She remembered the alcohol on his breath as his hands closed over her throat, as he pressed the life out of her. And then it all went black and she did not remember anything else. She did not see Julianne snatch up the knife and plunge it into his body, again and again.
But she remembered what she saw when her vision cleared. Bruce, lying on the floor, his eyes frantic, his breath gurgling. And there was blood. So much blood.
“Go to your room, darling,” her mother said. “Shut the door and don’t come out until I tell you to. Everything will be fine, I promise.”
And everything did turn out fine, in the end. Amy went to her room and waited for what seemed like forever. Through the closed door she heard the sound of something being dragged, then thumps on the porch steps, followed by a very long silence. Much later, water running in the sink and the washing machine rumbling and spinning.
When at last her mother told her to come out, Bruce was gone and the kitchen floor was damp and so clean, the linoleum was gleaming. “Where is he?” she asked.
“He left” was all her mother said.
“Where did he go?”
“It doesn’t matter, sweetheart. All that matters is he won’t hurt us again. But you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone what happened today. It’s the only way we’ll be safe. Promise me.”
Amy did.
A week later, they were on the road, just the two of them.You and me against the world,they sang as they drove away from the shack. Amy never knew what her mother did with Bruce’s body and she never asked. Buried him in the field, perhaps, or dropped him down the abandoned well. Julianne had always been good with details; she’d surely disposed of him someplace where he’d never be found and she’d scrubbed that kitchen so clean that the landlord never knew the linoleum hid microscopic traces of a dead man’s blood.
They had lived so long under the radar, moving from place toplace, that they made few friends and developed few attachments. No one ever asked about Bruce Flagler’s disappearance. No one cared. Only Amy and her mother knew what happened in that kitchen, in that sad shack under the hill, and neither of them would ever tell because along with courage, love sometimes demanded silence.
A knock on the bathroom door abruptly brought her back to the present. To the house in Boston where she now lived.
“Amy?” her father called through the door. “It’s getting late.”
“I’ll be right out.”
“Are you—are you sure you want to visit her?”
She could hear the doubt in his voice. And the pain. Although Amy insisted on visiting her mother every two weeks, Mike Antrim still could not bear to lay eyes on Julianne. In time, perhaps, he’d come to understand why she had done it. He’d understand the desperation that made her drive to Sofia’s house that night and plead for her silence. He’d understand why, when her pleadings failed, she’d pulled the hammer from her purse.
Amy understood.
She looked once again at the mirror and wondered if her mother would disapprove of the blond roots. After so many years of keeping herself hidden, this new girl was emerging from her chrysalis, every day a bit blonder, a bit more Lily. She hadn’t decided yet if this was a good thing; she would have to ask Julianne. Julianne would have the answer.
Mothers always do.
