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I shake my head.
“What about your aunt?” I ask. “Your mother left your brothers in her care. Her lazy ass shouldn’t have been napping, leaving four kids under the supervision of her idiot boyfriend.”
“Morally, she’s a lowlife—just like Arvin—but in the eye of the criminal justice, she wasn’t a killer. Aunt Moira was responsible for the well-being of my brothers. She dropped the ball big time, but she didn’t commit a crime, per se.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Arvin denied having any involvement in the accident, but Mirai, who was seven at the time, was the whistleblower. Marley was five.”
“Asshole.”
“That, he is,” she says. “For a long time, Mom couldn’t stop mourning my brothers.”
“Of course.”
“Eventually, she got in a better place in life where she wanted another child. She just didn’t want to get pregnant because she didn’t want to risk having a boy—she couldn’t handle the reminder. She was getting older as well, so that’s another reason that pushed her to consider adoption. That’s where I come into the picture. From what Mom told me, my birth parents dropped me off at a teen center in a laundry basket, wrapped up in blankets. They left a note. My biological father was fifteen. My biological mother was fourteen.”
Good God.
“They didn’t want to keep me.” She takes in a lungful of air. “It was late November, and I was just a few weeks old.”
Jesus.
“Mom and Dad had one restaurant at the time, and things were tight. Mom used to work as a cleaning lady at the teen center at night to make ends meet. She found me crying at the top of my lungs. A lengthy adoption process later, and I became Arianne Buchanan.”
I’m rarely speechless.
She powers on. “There’s a tradition in my family. All the girls’ names start with an M. Even after Mom and her three sisters immigrated to America, they continued the tradition. My great-great grandmother was Morag. My great grandmother was Maude. My grandmother was Meredith. Mom is Muriel. There’s Aunt Moira and her three daughters—Mirai, Marley, and Mariah. Aunt Maeve has six boys and Aunt Margot has four, so they’re exempt.” Her lips twist. “Aunt Moira never missed a day reminding me I was different and Mom stamped it on my forehead by breaking with tradition.”
“She has some nerve putting you down,” I say.
“I’ve always called them the Golightly witches behind their backs, including my aunt, even if her baby daddy refused to marry her.” She smiles wide. I like that rebellious side of her. “Dad calls them go-fuck-yourself hags. Of course, Dad had to make the insult a wee bit Scottish.”
I laugh.
“Did your parents meet in Philly?”
“No. Muriel MacDowall came to America at twenty-one. She left her longtime sweetheart behind. It took a little longer for Gregor Buchanan to follow, but he did. They got married soon after he arrived.”
“I see. From the sound of it, there’s no love lost between you and the Golightly witches.”
“None whatsoever. Although, I’ve warmed up to Mirai given the horrible thing her baby sister Mariah did to her.”
“Mariah sounds like a go-fuck-yourself hag,” I say in the best Scottish accent I can muster, imitating my buddy Collin Dennison when he’s drunk.
She laughs.
“Yeah, she’s a queen bitch. Even though we were born the same year, we’re worlds apart.”
“You’d think you’d be closer,” I say. “Jace and I are practically the same age and we’re like brothers. Same goes for his cousin Loki. Growing up, the three of us were as thick as thieves.”
“Mariah was born seven months before me. Even as a baby, I swear she hated me and always found ways to hurt me… as early as when we were in the playpen. For a long time, I was a people pleaser in my family. Mom told me at a young age I was adopted and of course, Aunt Moira drilled it into me. Growing up, even though Mariah was always quick to belittle me, I always helped her with her homework, hoping she’d come around. She always repaid me by being a total bitch. When I started at Maccabeus Learning, I decided I had enough—”
“What’s Maccabeus Learning?”
“A school for gifted kids in Philadelphia,” she says.
“I see.”
