Page 105 of The Life She Had

Daisy

We arein the forest behind Gran’s—my—house. I have fled from the police, and my gut keeps threatening to unload at my feet. To calm my nerves, Tom has gone over the plan in detail. Get Maeve’s diary tonight. Be at Dr. Hoover’s house before he leaves for work. Reveal myself to the doctor and get answers about the prescriptions and about Maeve’s death. Then, with all data intact, Tom will drive me to the police station, where I will tell the deputies who I am and give them what I have.

When we’ve been hiding for an hour, Tom jogs back to see whether the police are still at his place. They’re long gone. Then it’s on to Maeve’s house, where he checks in case the police looped back to talk to Celeste again. There’s no sign of them, and he suspects they’ll postpone the warrant until morning.

We slip up to the shed. From there, I can see Celeste’s bedroom window. Dark, as expected. All the windows are dark. Still, we take turns crossing to the house, the other one watching and listening.

He stays outside, watching Celeste’s window while I fetch the key from the planter and open the door. As I creep inside, I pause and roll my shoulders, the prickle of unease settling between them.

Yes, I’m breaking in... to a house that is legally mine.

Is that what’s bothering me? Or the fact that right over my head lies the woman who is trying to frame me for murder, sound asleep in my house. After she may have killed my grandmother to get it.

I take deep breaths. Yes, what I’m feeling isn’t the anxiety of breaking in; it’s a fireball of rage I’ve been tamping down for days. Until now, I was the predator, stalking her, slipping into “her” home, investigating her under her very nose. I was in control. I was hunting my prey in an elaborate ambush to ensure she had no chance to flee.

Now she still doesn’t know who I am, but she has taken the offensive. Tried to frame me for her lover’s murder. Kicked me out of my house. She’s struck at me, and the anger finally ignites.

I want her out. In that moment, I don’t care whether she gets away with murder—two murders, even. I want to storm upstairs and tell her who I am and let her run.

Get out of my life. Get out of my home. Get out of my head.

I squash the impulse. I would regret it later, especially if the police suspect I “got rid” of Celeste in a more permanent way.

No, I will have my revenge, and it will be a satisfying one, with Celeste led off in handcuffs.

Tom comes in, and I stand guard as he retrieves the diary. It is the same one I remember, faded floral cover and cheap key lock. A diary meant for a child who can pretend that the flimsy lock—one you can open with a fingernail—means her secrets are safe.

Tom lifts the diary over his head, and just at that moment, a thump sounds above. Two soft thuds, as if Celeste is getting out of bed. Tom’s eyes widen, and he wildly motions for me to leave. I scamper soundlessly to the back door, and he follows a moment later. We pause there until the upstairs bathroom door clicks shut, and then we are gone.

We are backat Tom’s place. He’s deemed that safe. The police aren’t staking it out, and if it’s me they’re after, they’ll check Maeve’s house first. Still, I insist on being careful. Come in the back door and keep the lights off until we’re in the windowless second-floor apartment.

That apartment is pretty much just a bedroom, kitchenette and a recliner. Bachelor living at its most economical. We sit at the kitchen table with the diary. Then Tom jumps up, as if he’s forgotten something, and I pause, but he waves for me to go on as he fixes coffee. I suspect it’s not so much the coffee he needs as the fact he’s realized I might want privacy for reading my grandmother’s journal.

I send up a silent apology to Maeve. Then I snap the child’s lock and open the yellowing pages. The first entry is dated twenty-five years ago.

Mikey brought Celeste over today. I think he’s looking better. He has a new job, and he’s happy and he’s sober. Maybe this will be the time.

My heart clenches, and I pause as I run my fingers over the faded ink.

No, Gran, that wasn’t the time. Not that time, or the time after or the time after that. I wonder how often you thought those words. How often my mother thought them. The hope that this time, he wouldn’t disappoint you, and he always did, and no one felt the crush of that as much as he did.

I flip forward a few pages and see an entry that stops my heart in my chest, and I need to pause there. Absorb it. Remember it, as painful as that is.

She’s leaving and taking CeCe with her, and I can’t say I blame her. Mikey didn’t mean it. Everyone knows that, even her. He was trying to be a good daddy. But when he’s on that junk, he’s not thinking straight. The doctor says that the blanket might not have been what killed her, but I guess that doesn’t matter. It was the last straw.

I touch the entry, and I remember my mother’s howls of grief, waking to find my infant sister dead in her crib. It’d been a cold night, and when Dad went to see her, he took a blanket from the shelf and put it over her. Trying to be a good daddy, like Gran says. Yes, he’d been told that increased the risk of SIDS, but he’d been high and, like Gran also says, not thinking straight. All he knew was that his baby girl seemed cold and the blankets were right there.

That might not have caused her death. It could have been pure coincidence. It didn’t matter. It was, indeed, the last straw.

Did Mom take me away to protect me? If so, I wish we could have talked about that. I wish we could have talked about so many things.

I take a deep breath and flip to the last page, where the ink is still bright on the old paper, but the hand is shaky, full of stops and starts.

I’ve missed my chance. I know that now. The end is coming like a freight train, and goddamn it, I’m not ready. I thought I’d have more time. I just needed to get a little better. Let this silly girl nurse me back to health enough for me to get off my ass and hire a proper private investigator to find my CeCe. But it’s too late. Made my peace with it. Know I did the right thing. That is enough.

I stare at the entry as my eyes fill with tears.

“CeCe?” Tom says in alarm as he hurries over.

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