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“You don’t have to do this,” Mac said. “She’s not coming back.”
The last thing she did was pull out the basket from under her bed to take out Charlotte’s diary. She put it in her backpack, hesitating when she saw the menu from Popcorn still in there. She brushed by Mac, not looking at him. She went to her scooter in the living room and strapped the tote and the box to the back. Then she slipped her backpack over her shoulders and kicked up the stand.
But Mac stepped in front of the scooter. “There’s nothing you can do tonight that can’t be done in the morning,” he said. “Come with me to my place.”
She knew he deserved answers. And she would be lying if she said it wouldn’t be a relief to finally tell someone her whole story, even if it was on her way out the door. She let go of the scooter and walked outside with him. She stared at the millionaire pie left onthe patio table as he closed and locked her doors. The single candle Zoey hadn’t managed to blow out had burned down into a tiny pool of wax on top of the whipped cream. Mac led her the long way around the garden to avoid the birds, and then he opened his door and guided her inside.
She took off her backpack and went directly to the couch. She sat back and covered her eyes with the palms of her hands, rubbing so hard she saw dark spots. “So how much have you worked out?”
“Just the obvious. That you’re really Pepper in the story you told me, and that it was Charlotte who died. Here, take this.”
She lowered her hands to see him extending a glass to her. She took it without a word and drank. It tasted malty as it burned down her throat. Scotch.
“What money was your mother talking about?” he asked as he sat beside her. Fig crossed from the far side of the couch and climbed into his lap, curling herself into the shape of a shell.
She looked down into the glass. “The night the real Charlotte died, I picked the lock on Minister McCauley’s office door. I’d seen Charlotte do it dozens of times. She’d tear his papers, empty his stapler—small stuff that would bother him, but not really draw his attention. Because if he found out, there would be hell to pay. There was so little power the kids had at the camp, but she found ways. I was going to destroy everything that night because of what he’d done to her. But when I got into the office, there it was, a bag of cash he’d not locked up. Healwayskept the money locked up. He was good at preaching about communal living, but he kept all the money to himself. He’d been planning to leave that night. There’d never been a death at the camp before, so he probably thought he couldn’t control the fallout. I took it and ran, just like Charlotte always wanted to do. I used it to buy my first place. That’s what I doevery time I move. I buy a place that’s all mine, something no one can take away.” She raised the glass to her lips and downed the rest of the Scotch in one gulp. Then she slapped the glass on the coffee table harder than she’d intended, like something from a movie. “I don’t regret it.”
“And I don’t blame you,” Mac said. “But are you saying that all this time no one but your mother has been looking for you and the money?”
She shrugged. “That place meant more to her than anyone else.”
“Then I don’t understand why you think you have to go. She’s not coming back.”
Of course it would never occur to him. He was too decent. He didn’t know what it was like to be this broken. “Because one day she might start making sense and reveal I’ve been living under a stolen identity for ten years.” She reached for her backpack and took out the diary. “Charlotte kept this when she lived at the camp. She listed all the places she wanted to go and everything she wanted to do when she finally ran away. I’ve tried to do it all for her.” She removed the photo tucked in the back, her hand shaking slightly. She’d never shown this to anyone. “That’s her.”
He took the photo and stared at the skinny girls—Pepper, short and blond with lips pinched nervously together, and the real Charlotte, tall and dark-haired with a smile so wide it caught everyone in her orbit. She was sure he was going to see what she saw and finally understand why it was so important to go on living as Charlotte: Of the two, clearly Charlotte should have been the one to survive.
“You told me what Charlotte wanted, but what didyouwant?” He handed the photo back to her.
“It doesn’t matter.” She turned away as she put the diary and photo back in her backpack.
“It does matter,” he said.
Still not looking at him, she said, “I just wanted to feel safe and settled somewhere.” In a quieter voice she added, “I wanted to feel loved.”
“Everyone wants those things. It’s not wrong.”
She shook her head.
“Look at me,” Mac said. He waited for her to finally turn to him. “You don’t have to do this alone anymore. We’re better because you’re here. Now let us be here for you.”
“You don’t need me, Mac. You’re already so put-together.”
“I’m not put-together.” Mac scrubbed his beard. It made a sandpapery sound. He picked up Fig and set her aside, then went back to the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a Scotch and drank it quickly, making a pained face at the stinging in his throat. “Do you want to know how un-put-together I am?” he finally asked. “Camille is here. Right now. I know that sounds crazy, but she is. I’m keeping her here, even though I know she wants to go. I’ve put her ghost between myself and everyone else because her love defined me for so long that I don’t know who I am without it. But then you came along and made me realize I can’t hold on to the past and grab for the future at the same time. I have to choose. Eventually, we all have to choose.”
She automatically turned to look at the photo on the wall of him and Camille. “That’s not crazy, Mac,” she said. “But it’s not the same.”
He walked back to the couch and sat, taking her hands in his. “It’sexactlythe same. It’s as scary as hell to think of letting go. But I’ll do it,” he said, “if you do it.”
“Mac—”
“We’ll do it together.”
She hesitated.
“On the count of three. Okay?”
His eyes held hers, and she couldn’t look away. Emotion was welling in her, making her unable to speak. She was so tired of running. But could she really trust herself to stay, to be the person Mac and Zoey needed her to be? She hadn’t been Pepper in a long, long time. She wasn’t sure she remembered how to be herself anymore.
